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THE 

CONDUCT 



OF THE 



UNDERSTANDING 

IN THE 

SEARCH OF TRUTH. 



BY JOHN LOCKE, ESQ. 



A NEW EDITION, 



EDINBURGH: 

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM CREECH ; 

AND JOHN MURRAY, LONDOX. 
Alex. Smollie, Printer. 



1807. 

C 



kS 



contents: 



Page. 

Sect. 1. Introduction .......... 1 

2. Parts . . . , 4 

3. Reasoning 5 

4. Of Practice and Habits 15 

5. Ideas 19 

6. Principles ibi 

7. Mathematics 29 

S. Religion 3$ 

9. Ideas 37 

10. Prejudice 39 

1 1 . Indifferency 42 

12. Examine 43 



VI CONTENTS. 

Page. 
Sect. 13. ^Observation . . 48 

14. Bias 50 

15. Arguments 52 

16. Haste 54 

J 7. Desultory ...... 56 

1 8. Smattering ib. 

19. Universality 57 

20. Reading 6l 

21. Intermediate Principles 64 

22. Partiality . . . 66 

23. Theology 67 

24. Partiality 68 

25. Haste 79 

26. Anticipation 82 

27. Resignation . . . . 84 

28. Practice 85 

29. Words 88 

30. Wandering 91 

31. Distinction 93 

32. Srmilies . . . 98 

33. Assent 10L 

34. Tndifferency 103 

35. Indifferency 107 

36. Question . . . . * 110 

37. Perseverance Ill 



CONTENTS. Vll 

Pago. 

Sect. 38. Presumption . . . . 112 

39. Despondency . . , 113 

40. Analogy US 

41. Association 119 

42. Fallacies 123 

43. Fundamental Verities 128 

44. Bottoming • 131 

45. Transferring of Thoughts 132 



Quid tarn temerarwm tamque indignum sapitnth 

gravitate at que constantia, quoin aut fahnm sen* 

tire, aut quccl mm satis explorate perceptum sit? 

et cognitam, sine iilla dubitatione defendere f .... 

Cicero, de datura deqrum, lib. i. 



OF THE 



CONDUCT 



OF THE 



UNDERSTANDING. 



^ 



§ 1. Introduction. 

The last resort a man has recourse to, in the 
conduct of himself, is his understanding : for 
though we distinguish the faculties of the mind, 
and give the supreme command to the will, as to 
an agent, yet the truth is, the man, who is the 
agent, determines himself to this, or that, volun- 
tary action, upon some precedent knowledge, or 
appearance of knowledge, in the understanding. 
No man ever sets himself about any thing, but 
upon some view, or other, which serves him for a 
reason for what he does : and whatsoever facul- 

A 



2 CONDUCT OF 

ties he employs, the understanding, with such 
light as it has, well or ill informed, constantly 
leads; and by that light, true or false, all his 
operative powers are directed. The will itself, how 
absolute and uncontrollable soever it may be 
thought, never fails in its obedience to the dic- 
tates of the understanding. Temples have their 
sacred images, and we see what influence they have 
always had over a great part of mankind. But, 
in truth, the ideas and images in men's minds are 
the invisible powers that constantly govern them ; 
and to these they all universally pay a ready 
submission. It is, therefore, of the highest con- 
cernment, that great care should be taken of the 
understanding, to conduct it right in the search 
of knowledge, and in the judgements it makes. 

The logic, now in use, has so long possessed 
the chair, as the only art taught in the schools, 
for the direction of the mind, in the study of the 
arts and sciences, that it would perhaps be thought 
an affectation of novelty to suspect, that rules, that 
have served the learned world these two or three 
thousand years, and which, without any complaint 
of defects, the learned have rested in, are not suf- 
ficient to guide the understanding; and I should 
not doubt but this attempt would be censured a* 



THE UNDERSTANDING. O 

canity or presumption, did not the great Lord Ve- 
rulam's authority justify it; who, not servilely 
thinking learning could not be advanced beyond 
what it was, because for many ages it had not been, 
did not rest in the lazy approbation and applause 
of what was, because it was ; but enlarged his 
mind to what might be. In his preface to his 
Novum Organum concerning logic, he pronounces 
thus : Quisummas dialecticae partes tribuerunt, atque 
inde Jidissima scientiis praesidia comparari putarunt, 
Tcrissime et optime viderunt intellectwn humanum 
sibi pennissum merito suspectum esse dtbere. Verum 
iiifirmior omnino est malo medicina ; nee ipsa malt 
expers. Siquidem dialectka, quae recepta est, licet 
ad civilia et artes, quae in sermone et opinione positae 
sunt, rectissime adhibeatur ; naturae tamen subtilita- 
tem longo intervallo non attingit, et prensando quod 
non capit, ad error es potius stabiliendos et quasi jigtn- 
dos, quam ad viam veritati aperiendam taluit. 

" They, says he, who attributed so much to logic, 
" perceived very well and truly, that it was not safe 
" to trust the understanding to itself, without the 
f guard of any rules. But the remedy reached not 
" the evil, but became a part of it : For the logic 
u which took place, though it might do well 
u enough in civil affairs, and the arts which con- 
a 2 



4 CONDUCT OF 

" sisted in talk and opinion, yet comes very far 
" short of subtilty in the real performances of 
" nature ; and catching at what it cannot reach, 
" has served to confirm and establish errors, rather 
'" than to open a way to truth." And, therefore, 
a little after, he says, u That it is absolutely neces- 
" sary that a better and perfecter use and cm- 
* ploymcnt of the mind and understanding should 
u be introduced/' Necessario requirihir ut mclior et 
perfectior mentis et intellect us humani usvs et adope- 
ratio introducatur. 

2. Parts. 

There is, it is visible, great variety in men's 
understandings, and their natural constitutions 
put so wide a difference between some men in 
this respect, that art and industry would never 
be able to master, and their very natures seem 
to want a foundation to raise on it that which 
other men easily attain unto. Amongst men of 
equal education, there is great inequality of 
parts; and the woods of America, as well as the 
schools of Athens, produce men of several abi- 
lities in the same kind. Though this be so, yet 
I imagine most men come very short of what they 



THE UNDERSTANDING. O 

might attain unto in their several degrees, by a ne- 
glect of their understandings: A few rules of logic 
are thought sufficient in this case for those who 
pretend to the highest improvement ; whereas, I 
think, there are a great many natural defects in 
the understanding capable of amendment, which 
are overlooked and wholly neglected ; and it is 
easy to perceive that men are guilty of a great 
many faults in the exercise and improvement of 
this faculty of the mind, which hinder them in 
their progress, and keep them in ignorance and 
error all their lives. Some of them I shall take no- 
tice of, and endeavour to point out proper re- 
medies for, in the following discourse 

3. Reasoning. 

Besides the want of determined ideas, and of 
sagacity and exercise in finding out and laying in 
order intermediate ideas, there are three miscar- 
riages that men are guilty of, in reference to their 
reason, whereby this faculty is hindered in them 
from that service it might do and was designed 
for ; and he that reflects upon the actions and dis- 
courses of mankind, will find their defects in this 
kind very frequent and very observable. 
a 3 



6 CONDUCT OF 

1. The first is of those who seldom reason at 
all, but do and think according to the example of 
others, whether parents, neighbours, ministers, or f 
who else they are pleased to make choice of to 
have an implicit faith in, for the saving of them- 
selves the pains and trouble of thinking and ex- 
amining for themselves. 

2. The second is of those who put passion in 
the place of reason, and being resolved that shall 
govern their actions and arguments, neither use 
their own, nor hearken to other people's reason, any 
farther than it suits their humour, interest, or par- 
ty; and these, one may observe, commonly con- 
tent themselves with words which have no distinct 
ideas to them, though, in other matters that they 
come with an unbiassed indifferency to, they want 
not abilities to talk and hear reason, where they 
have no secret inclination that hinders them from 
being tractable to it. 

3. The third sort is of those who readily and 
sincerely follow reason, but for want of having 
that which one may call large, sound, roundabout 
sense, have not a full view of all that relates to 
the question, and may be of moment to decide 
it. We are all short-sighted, and very often see 
hut one side of a matter ; our views are not ex- 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 7 

tended to all that has a connection with it. From 
this defect I think no man is free. We see but in 
part, and we know but in part, and therefore it is 
no wonder we conclude not right from our partial 
views. This might instruct the proudest esteemer 
of his own parts how useful it is to talk and con- 
sult with others, even such as come short of him 
in capacity, quickness, and penetration ; for since 
no one sees all, and we generally have different 
prospects of the same thing, according to our 
different, as I may say, positions to it, it is not 
incongruous to think, nor beneath any man to 
try, whether another may not have notions of 
things which have escaped him, and which his 
reason would make use of, if they came into 
his mind. The faculty of reasoning seldom or 
never deceives those who trust to it ; its conse- 
quences from what it builds on, are evident and 
certain ; but that which it oftenest, if not only, 
misleads us in, is, that the principles from which 
we conclude, the grounds upon which we bottom 
our reasoning, are but a part ; something is left out 
which should go into the reckoning to make it just 
and exact. Here we may imagine a vast and al- 
most infinite advantage that angels and separate 
spirits may have over us, who, in their several de- 

-A 4 



3 CONDUCT OF 

grccs of elevation above us, may be endowed with 
more comprehensive faculties, and some of them 
perhaps have perfect and exact views of all finite 
beings that come under their consideration, can r 
as it were, in the twinkling of an eye, collect toge- 
ther all their scattered and almost boundless re- 
lations. A mind so furnished, what reason has it 
to acquiesce in the certainty of its conclusions! 

In this we may see the reason why some men 
of study and thought, that reason right, and are 
lovers of truth, do make no great advances in their 
discoveries of it. Error and truth are uncertainly 
blended in their minds, their decisions are lame and 
defective, and they are very often mistaken in their 
judgements ; the reason whereof is, they converse 
but with one sort of men, they read but one sort of 
books, they will not come in the hearing but of 
one sort of notions ; the truth is, they canton out 
to themselves a little Goshen in the intellectual 
world, where light shines, and, as they conclude, 
day blesses them ; but the rest of that vast expansum 
they give up to night and darkness, and so avoid 
coming near it. They have a pretty traffic with 
known correspondents in some little creek ; within 
that they confine themselves, and are dexterous 
managers enough of the wares and products of 



THE UNDERSTANDING. Q 

that corner with which they content themselves ; 
but will not venture out into the great ocean of 
knowledge, to survey the riches that nature hath 
stored other parts with, no less genuine, no less so- 
lid, no less useful, than what has fallen to their 
lot in the admired plenty and sufficiency of their 
own little spot, which to them contains whatsoever 
is good in the universe. Those who live thus 
mewed up within their own contracted territories, 
and will not look abroad beyond the boundaries 
that chance, conceit, or laziness, has set to their in- 
quiries, but live separate from the notions, discour- 
ses, and attainments of the rest of mankind, may 
not amiss be represented by the inhabitants of 
the Marian islands, who being separated by a 
large track of sea from all communion with the 
habitable parts of the earth, thought themselves 
the only people of the world ; and though the 
straitness of the conveniencies of life amongst 
them had never reached so far as to the use of fire, 
till the Spaniards, not many years since, in their 
voyages from Acapulco to Manilla, brought it 
amongst them ; yet in the want and ignorance of 
almost all things, they looked upon themselves, 
even after that the Spaniards had brought amongst 
them the notice of variety of nations abounding in 



10 CONDUCT OF 

sciences, arts, and conveniencies of life, of which 
they knew nothing, they looked upon themselves, I 
say, as the happiest and wisest people of the uni- 
verse. But for all that, nobody, I think, will im- 
agine them deep naturalists, or solid metaphysici- 
ans; nobody will deem the quickest-sighted a- 
mongst them to have very enlarged views in ethics 
or politics ; nor can any one allow the most capa- 
ble amongst them to be advanced so far in his un- 
derstanding, -as to have any other knowledge, but 
of the few little things of his and the neighbouring 
islands within his commerce ; but far enough from 
that comprehensive enlargement of mind which 
adorns a soul devoted to truth, assisted with let- 
ters, and a free generation of the several views and 
sentiments of thinking men of all sides. Let not 
men, therefore, that would have a sight of what 
every one pretends to he desirous to have a sight 
of, truth in its full extent, narrow and blind their 
own prospect. Let not men think there is no 
truth but in the sciences that they study, or the 
books that they read. To prejudge other men's 
notions before we have looked into them, is not to 
show their darkness, but to put out our own eyes. 
Try all things, holdfast that which is good, is a di- 
vine rule, coming from the Pather of light and 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 11 

truth ; and it is hard to know what other way- 
men can come at truth, to lay hold of it, if they 
do not dig and search for it as for gold and hid 
treasure ; but he that does so, must have much 
earth and rubbish before he gets the pure metal ; 
sand, and pebbles, and dross, usually lie blended 
with it, but the gold is nevertheless gold, and will 
enrich the man that employs his pains to seek and 
separate it. Neither is there any danger he should 
be deceived by the mixture. Every man carries 
about him a touchstone, if he will make use of it, 
to distinguish substantial gold from superficial 
glitterings, truth from appearances. And indeed 
the use and benefit of this touchstone, which is na- 
tural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assumed 
prejudices, over-weening presumption, and narrow- 
ing our minds. The want of exercising it, in the 
full extent of things intelligible, is that which wea- 
kens and extinguishes this noble faculty in us. 
Trace it, and see whether it be not so. The day- 
labourer in a country village has commonly but a 
small pittance of knowledge, because his ideas and 
notions have been confined to the narrow bounds 
of a poor conversation and employment; the low 
mechanic of a country town does somewhat out- 
do him ; porters and coblers of great cities surpass 



12 CONDUCT OF 

them. A country gentleman, who, leaving Latin 
and learning in the university, removes thence to 
his mansion-house, and associates with neighbours 
of the same strain, who relish nothing but hunt- 
ing and a bottle ; with those alone he spends his 
time, with those alone he converses, and can away 
with no company whose discourse goes beyond 
what claret and dissoluteness inspires. Such a pa- 
triot, formed in this happy way of improvement, 
cannot fail, as we see, to give notable decisions 
upon the bench at quarter-sessions, and eminent 
proofs of his skill in politics, when the strength of 
his purse and party have advanced him to a more 
conspicuous station. To such a one, truly, an ordi- 
nary coffee-house gleaner of the city is an errant 
statesman, and as much superior too, as a man, 
conversant about Whitehall and the court, is to an 
ordinary shop-keeper. To carry this a little far- 
ther : Here is one muffled up in the zeal and infal- 
libility of his own sect, and will not touch a book, 
or enter into debate with a person that will ques- 
tion any of those things which to him are sacred. 
Another surveys our differences in religion with an 
equitable and fair indifference, and so finds proba- 
bly that none of them are in every thing unexcep- 
tionable. These divisions and systems were made 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 13 

by men, and carry the mark of fallible on them ; 
and in those whom he differs from, and till he 
opened his eyes had a general prejudice against, 
he meets with more to be said for a great many 
things than before he was aware of, or could have 
imagined. Which of these two now is most like- 
ly to judge right in our religious controversies, and 
to be most stored with truth, the mark all pretend 
to aim at? All these men that I have instanced in, 
thus unequally furnished with truth, and advanc- 
ed in knowledge, 1 suppose of equal natural parts ; 
all the odds between them has been the different 
scope that has been given to their understandings 
to range in, for the gathering up of information, 
and furnishing their heads with ideas, notions, and 
observations, whereon to employ their minds, and 
form their understandings. 

It will possibly be objected, who is sufficient for 
all this? I answer, more than can be imagined. 
Every one knows what his proper business is, and 
what, according to the character he makes of 
himsvlf, the world may justly expect of him ; and 
to answer that, he will find he will have time and 
opportunity enough to furnish himself, if he will 
not deprive himself, by a nariowness of spirit, of 
those helps that are at hand. I do not say, to be 



14 CONDUCT OF 

a good geoprapher, that a man should visit every 
mountain, river, promontory, and creek upon the 
face of the earth, view the-buildings, and survey the 
land every where, as if he were going to make a pur- 
chase ; but yet every one must allow that he shall 
know a country better, that makes often sallies in- 
to it, and traverses it up and down, than he that 
like a mill-horse goes still round in the same track, 
or keeps within the narrow bounds of a field or 
two that delight him. He that will enquire out 
the best books in every science, and inform him- 
self of the most material authors of the several 
sects of philosophy and religion, will not find it an 
infinite work to acquaint himself with the senti- 
ments of mankind concerning the most weighty 
and comprehensive subjects. Let him exercise 
the freedom of his reason and understanding in 
such a latitude as this, and his mind will b& 
strengthened, his capacity enlarged, his faculties 
improved; and the light which the remote and 
scattered parts of truth will give to one another, 
will so assist his judgement, that he will seldom be 
widely out, or miss giving proof of a clear head, 
and a comprehensive knowledge. At least, this 
is the only way I know to give the understanding 
its due improvement to the full extent of its capa- 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 15 

city, and to distinguish the two most different 
things I know in the world, a logical chicaner 
from a man of reason. Only he that would 
thus give the mind its flight, and send abroad his 
inquiries into all parts after truth, must be sure to 
settle in his head determined ideas of all that he 
employs his thoughts about, and never fail to judge 
himself, and judge unbiassedly of all that he re- 
ceives from others, either in their writings or dis- 
courses. Reverence or prejudice must not be suf- 
fered to give beauty or deformity to any of their 
opinions. 

4. Of Practice and Habits. 

We are born with faculties and powers capable 
almost of any thing, such at least as would carry 
us farther than can easily be imagined ; but it is 
only the exercise of those powers which gives us 
ability and skill in any thing, and leads us towards 
perfection. 

A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever be 
brought to the carriage and language of a gentle- 
man, though his body be as well proportioned, and 
his joints as supple, and his natural parts not any 
way inferior. The legs of a dancing-master, and 



J 6 CONDUCT OF 

the fingers of a musician, fall as it were naturally 
without thought or pains into regular and admir- 
able motions. Bid them change their parts, and ; 
they will in vain endeavour to produce like mo- 
tions in the members not used to them, and it will 
require length of time and long practice to attain 
but some degrees of a like ability. What incredible 
and astonishing actions do we find rope-dancers 
and tumblers bring their bodies to ! Not but that 
sundry in almost all manual arts are as wonderful ; 
but I name those which the world takes notice of 
for such, because on that very account they give 
money to see them. All these admired motions, 
beyond the reach and almost the conception of un- 
practised spectators, are nothing but the mere ef- 
fects of use and industry in men, whose bodies 
have nothing peculiar in them from those of the 
amazed lookers-on. 

As it is in the body, so it is in the mind ; prac- 
tice makes it what it is; and most, even of those 
excellencies which are looked on as natural en- 
dowments, will be found, when examined into 
more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and 
to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions. 
Some men are remarked for pleasantness in rail- 
lery ; others for apologues and apposite diverting 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 17 

Stories. This is apt to be taken for the effect of 
pure nature, and that the rather, because it is not 
got by rules, and those who excel in either of them, 
never purposely set themselves to the study of it 
as an art to be learned. But yet it is true, that 
at first some lucky hit, which took with somebody 
and gained him commendation, encouraged him to 
try again, inclined his thoughts and endeavours 
that way, till at last he insensibly got a facility in 
it, without perceiving how, and that is attributed 
wholly to nature, w ? hich was much more the ef- 
fect of use and practice. I do not deny that na- 
tural disposition may often give the first rise to it, 
but that never carries a man far without use and 
-exercise, and it is practice alone that brings the 
powers of the mind as well as those of the body to 
their perfection. Many a good poetic vein is bu- 
ried under a trade, and never produces any thing 
for want of improvement. We see the ways of dis- 
course and reasoning are very different, even con- 
cerning the same matter, at court and in the uni- 
versity ; and he that will go but from Westminster- 
hall to the Exchange will find a different genius 
and turn in their ways of talking ; and yet one can- 
not think that all whose lot fell in the city, were 



18 CONDUCT OF 

born with different parts from those who are bred 
at the university or inns of court. 

To what purpose ail this, but to show that the 
difference, so observable in mens understandings 
and parts, does not arise so much from their natu- 
ral faculties as acquired habits. He would be 
laughed at that should go about to make a fine 
dancer out of a country hedger at past fifty ; and 
he will not have much better success who shall en- 
deavour at that age to make a man reason well, or 
speak handsomely, who has never been used to it, 
though you should lay before him a collection of 
all the best precepts of logic or oratory. Nobo- 
dy is made any thing by hearing of rules, or lay- 
ing them up in his memory; practice must settle 
the habit of doing, without reflecting on the rule ; 
and you may as well hope to make a good painter 
or musician, extempore, by a lecture and instruc- 
tion in the arts of music and painting, as a cohe- 
rent thinker, or strict reasoner, by a set of rules, 
showing him wherein right reasoning consists. 

This being so, that defects and weakness in men's 
understandings, as well as other faculties, come 
from want of a right use of their own minds, I am 
apt to think the fault is generally mislaid upon na- 
ture, and there is often a complaint of want of 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 19 

parts, when the fault lies in want of a due im- 
provement of them. We see men frequently dex- 
terous and sharp enough in making a bargain, who, 
if you reason with them about matters of religion, 
appear perfectly stupid. 

5. Ideas. 

I will not here, in what relates to the right con- 
duct and improvement of the undei standing, re- 
peat again the getting clear and determined ideas, 
arid the employing our thoughts rather about them, 
than about sounds put for them, nor of settling 
the signification of words which we use with our- 
selves in the search of truth, or with others in dis- 
coursing about it. Those hinderances of our un- 
derstandings in the pursuit of knowledge, I have 
sufficiently enlarged upon in another place ; so that 
nothing more needs here to be said of those matters, 

6, Principles* 

There is another fault that stops or misleads 
men in their knowledge, which I have also spoken 
something of, but yet is necessary to mention here 
-again, that we may examine it to the bottom, and 
b % 



20 -CONBUCT OF 

see the root it springs from ; and that is, a custom 
of taking up with principles that are not self-evi- 
dent, and very often not so much as true. It is 
not unusual to see men rest their opinions upon 
foundations that have no more certainty and soli- 
dity than the propositions built on them, and em- 
braced for their sake. Such foundations are these 
and the like, viz. the founders or leaders of my 
party are good men, and therefore their tenets 
are true; it is the opinion of a sect that is errone- 
ous, therefore it is false ; it hath been long received 
in the world, therefore it is true; or it is new, and 
therefore false 

These, and many the like, which are by no 
means the measures of truth and falsehood., the ge- 
nerality of men make the standards by which they 
accustom their understanding to judge; and thus, 
they falling into a habit of determining -of truth 
and falsehood by such wrongs measures, -it k no 
wonder they should embrace error for certainty, and 
be very positive in things they have no ground for. 

There is not any who pretends to the least rea- 
son, but when any of these his false maxims are 
brought to the test, must acknowledge them to be 
fallible, and such as he will not allow in those that 
differ from him ; and yet after he is convinced of 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 21 

this, you shall see him go on in the use of them, 
and the very next occasion that offers, argue again 
upon the same grounds. Would one not be ready 
to think that men are willing to impose upon them- 
selves, and mislead their own understandings, who 
conduct them by such wrong measures, even after 
they see they cannot be relied on ? But yet they 
will not appear so blameableas may be thought at 
first sight; for I think there are a great many that 
argue thus in earnest, and do it not to impose on 
themselves, or others; they are persuaded of what 
they say, and think there is weight in it, though in 
a like case they have been convinced there is none; 
but men would be intolerable to themselves, and 
contemptible to others, if they should embrace 
opinions without any ground, and hold what they 
could give no manner of reason for. True or false, 
solid or sandy, the mind must have some foun- 
dation to rest itself upon ; and, as I have remarked 
in another place, it no sooner entertains any pro- 
position, but it presently hastens to some hypothe- 
sis to bottom it on : till then it is unquiet and un- 
settled. So much do our own very tempers dis- 
pose us to a right use of our understandings, if we 
would follow,, as we should, the inclinations of our 
nature, 

b 3 



22 conduct or 

In some matters of concernment, especially 
those of religion, men are not permitted to be al- 
ways wavering and uncertain ; they must embrace 
and profess some tenets or other ; and it would be a 
shame, nay, a contradiction too heavy for any one's 
mind to lie constantly under, for him to pretend se- 
riously to be persuaded of the truth of any religion^ 
and yet not to be able to give any reason of his be- 
lief, or to say any thing for his preference of this 
to any other opinion ; and therefore they must 
make use of some principles or other, and those 
can be no other than such as they have and can 
manage ; and to say they are not in earnest per- 
suaded by them, and do not rest upon those they 
make use of, is contrary to experience, and to 
allege that they are not misled when we complain 
they are. 

If this be so, it Mill be urged, why then do they 
not make use of sure and unquestionable princi- 
ples, rather than rest on such grounds as may de- 
ceive them, and will, as is visible, serve to support 
error as well as truth ? 

To this I answer, the reason why they do not 
make use of better and surer principles, is be- 
cause they cannot : But this inability proceeds not 
from want of natural parts (for those few whose 



THE UNDERSTANDING, 23 

case that is, are to be excused) but for want of use 
and exercise. Few men, from their youth, are ac- 
customed to strict reasoning, and to trace the de- 
pendence of any truth in a long train of conse- 
quences to its remote principles, and to observe its 
connexion ; and he that by frequent practice has 
not been used to this employment of his under- 
standings it is no more wonder that he should not, 
when he is grown into years, be able to bring his 
mind to it, than that he should not be on a sudden 
able to grave or design, dance on the ropes, or 
write a good hand,, who has never practised either 
of them. 

Nay, the most of men are so wholly strangers 
to this, that they do not so much as perceive their 
want of it ; they dispatch the ordinary business of 
their callings by rote, as we say, as they have learn- 
ed it ; and if at any time they mis& success, they 
impute it to any thing rather than want of thought 
or skill; that they conclude (because they know no 
better) they have in perfection - y or if there be any 
subject that interest or fancy has recommended to 
their thoughts, their reasoning about it is still after 
their own fashion ; be it better or worse, it serves 
their turns, and is the best they are acquainted 
with ; and therefore when they are led by it into 
B 4 



24 CONDUCT OF 

mistakes, and their business succeeds accordingly; 
they impute it to any cross accident, or default 
of others, rather than to their own want of un* 
derstanding ; that is what nobody discovers or 
complains of in himself. Whatsoever made his 
business to miscarry, it was not of right thought 
and judgement in himself; he sees no such defect 
in himself, but is satisfied that he carries on his 
designs well enough by hi& own reasoning, or at 
least should have done, had it not been for un- 
lucky traverses not in his power* Thus being* 
content with this short and very imperfect use of 
his understanding, he never troubles, himself to- 
seek out methods of improving his mind, and lives 
all his life without any notion of close reasoning,' 
in a continued connexion of a long train of con- 
sequences from sure foundations^ such as is requi- 
site for the making out and clearing most of the 
speculative truths most men own to believe ancP 
are most concerned in. Not to mention here* 
what I shall have occasion to insist on by and by 
more fully, viz. that in many cases it is not one- 
series of consequences will serve the turn, but?" 
many different and opposite deductions must be* 
examined and laid together, before a man can come 
to make a right judgement of the point in question* 



THE TTNDERSTAXDIXG. 25 

What tlien can be expected from men that neither 
see the want of any such kind of reasoning as this ; 
nor, if they do, know they how to set about it, or 
could perform it ? You may as well set a coun- 
try man, who scarce knows the figures, and never 
cast up a sum of three particulars, to state a mer- 
chant's long account, and find the true balance of 
it. 

What then should be done in the case T I an- 
swer, we should always remember what I said 
above, that the faculties of our souls are improved 
and made useful to us, just after the same manner 
as- our bodies are. Would you have a man write 
or paint, dance or fence well, or perform any 
other manual operation dexterously and with ease; 
let him have ever so much vigour and activity, 
suppleness and address, naturally, yet nobody ex- 
pects this from him unless he has been used to it, 
and has employed time and pains in fashioning 
and forming his hand or outward parts to these 
motions. Just so it is in the mind ; would you 
have a man reason well, you must use him to it 
betimes, exercise his mind in observing the con- 
nexion of ideas, and follow them in train* No- 
thing does this better than mathematics, which-, 
therefore., I think should be taught all those wha 



26 CONDUCT OF 

have the time and opportunity, not so much to 
make them mathematicians, as to make them rea- 
sonable creatures; for though we all call ourselves 
so, because we are born to it if we please, yet we 
may truly say Nature gives us but the seeds of it ; 
we are born to be, if we please, rational creatures,, 
but it is use and exercise only that makes us so ; 
and we are indeed so no farther than industry and 
application has carried us ; and therefore in ways 
of reasoning which men have not been used to, he 
that will observe the conclusions they take up* 
must be satisfied they are not all rational* 

This has been the less taken notice of, because 
every one in his private affairs uses some sort of 
reasoning or other, enough to denominate him rea- 
sonable ; but the mistake is, that he that is found 
reasonable in one things is concluded to be so in 
all, and to think or say otherwise is thought so un- 
just an affront, and so senseless a censure^ that 
nobody ventures to do it. It looks like the degra- 
dation of a man below the dignity of his nature. It 
is true, that he that reasons well in any one thing, 
has a mind naturally capable of reasoning well in 
others, and to the same degree of strength and 
clearness, and possibly much greater, had his un- 
derstanding been so employed, But it is as true*. 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 27 

that he who can reason well to day about one sort 
of matters, cannot at all reason to day about 
others, though perhaps a year hence he may. But 
wherever a mans rational faculty fails him, and 
will not serve him to reason, there we cannot say 
he is rational, how capable soever he may be by 
time and exercise to become so. 

Try in men of low and mean education, who 
have never elevated their thoughts above the spade 
and the plough, nor looked beyond the ordinary 
drudgery of a day labourer : Take the thoughts of 
such an one, used for many years to one tract, 
out of that narrow compass he has been all his 
life confined to, you will find him no more capa- 
ble of reasoning than almost a perfect natural. 
Some one or two rules, on which their conclusions 
immediately depend, you will find, in most men, 
have governed all their thoughts ; these, true or 
false, have been the maxims they have been guided 
by : Take these from them, and they are perfectly 
at a loss, their compass and pole-star then are gone, 
and their understanding is perfectly at a nonplus, 
and therefore they either immediately return to 
their old maxims again, as the foundations of all 
truth to them, notwithstanding all that can be 
said to show their weakness, or if they give them up 



2& CONDUCT OF 

to their reasons, they with them give up all trutL 
and further inquiry, and think there is no such 
thing as certainty; for if you would enlarge their 
thoughts, and settle them upon more remote and 
surer principles, they either cannot easily appre- 
hend them, or if they can, know not what use to 
make of them ; for long deductions from remote 
principles is what they have not been used to, and 
cannot manage. 

What, then, can grown men never Be improved 
or enlarged in their understandings? I say not 
so; but this I think I may say, that it will not 
be done without industry and application, which 
will require more time and pains than grown men, 
settled in their course of life, will allow to it, and 
therefore very seldom is done. And this very ca- 
pacity of attaining it by use and exercise only, 
brings us back to that which I laid down before, 
that it is only practice that improves our minds as 
well as bodies, and we must expect nothing from 
our understandings, any farther than they are per- 
fected by habits. 

The Americans are not all born with worse un- 
derstandings than the Europeans, though we see 
none of them have such reaches in the arts and 
sciences. And among the children of a poor 



THE UNDERSTANDING, %9 

country man, the lucky chance of education, and 
getting into the world, gives one infinitely the supe- 
riority in parts over the rest, who, continuing at 
home, had continued also just of the same size 
with his brethren. 

He that has to do with young scholars, espe- 
cially in mathematics, may perceive how their 
minds open by degrees, and how it is exercise 
alone that opens them. Sometimes they will stick 
a long time at a part of a demonstration, not for 
want of will and application, but really for want 
x)f perceiving the connexion of two ideas, that to 
one whose understanding is more exercised, is as 
visible as any thing can be. The same would be 
with a grown man beginning to study mathema- 
tics ; the understanding, for want of use, often 
sticks in every plain way ; and he himself that is 
so puzzled, when he comes to see the connexion- 
wonders what it was he stuck at in a case so 
jplain. 

7« Mathematics. 

I have mentioned mathematics as a way to settle 
in the mind an habit of reasoning closely and in 
■train ; not that I think it necessary that all men 



SO CONDUCT O? 

should be dpep mathematicians, but that having 
got the way of reasoning which that study neces- 
sarily brings the mind to, they might be able to 
transfer it to other parts of knowledge as they 
should have occasion. For in all sorts of reason- 
ing, every single argument should be managed as 
a mathematical demonstration ; the connexion 
and dependance of ideas should be followed, till 
the mind is brought to the source on which it bot- 
toms, and observes the coherence all along; 
though in proofs of probability, one such train is 
not enough to settle the judgement, as in demon- 
strative knowledge. 

Where a truth is made out by one demonstra- 
tion, there needs no further inquiry ; but in pro- 
babilities where there wants demonstration to esta- 
blish the truth beyond doubt, there it is not enough 
to trace one argument to its source, and observe 
its strength and weakness, but all the arguments, 
after having been so examined on both sides, must 
be laid in balance one against another, and, upon 
the whole, the understanding determine its as- 
sent. 

This is a way of reasoning the understanding 
should be accustomed to, which is so different 
from what the illiterate are used to ? that even 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 31 

teamed men oftentimes seem to have very little or 
no notion of it, Nor is it to be wondered, since the 
way of disputing in the schools leads them quite 
away from it, by insisting on one topical argument, 
by the success of which the truth or falsehood of 
the question is to be determined, and victory ad- 
judged to the opponent or defendant; which is all 
one as if one should balance an account by one 
sum charged and discharged, when there are an 
hundred others to be taken into consideration. 

This, therefore, it would be well if men's minds 
were accustomed to, and that early, that they 
might not erect their opinions upon one single 
view, when so many other are requisite to make 
up the account, and must come into the reckoning 
before a man can form a right judgement. This 
would enlarge their minds, and give a due free- 
dom to their understandings, that they might not 
be led into error by presumption, laziness, or 
precipitancy; for I think nobody can approve 
such a conduct of the understanding, as should 
mislead it from truth, though it be ever so much 
in fashion to make use of it. 

To this perhaps it will be objected, that to ma- 
nage the understanding, as I propose, would re- 
quire every man to be a scholar, and to be furnish" 



Sfi CONDUCT OP 

ed with all the materials of knowledge, and exer- 
cised in all the ways of reasoning. To which I an- 
swer, that it is a shame for those that have time, ; 
and the means to attain knowledge, to want any 
helps or assistance for the improvement of their 
understandings that are to be got ; and to such I 
would be thought here chiefly to speak. Those, 
methinks, who by the industry and parts of their 
ancestors, have been set free from a constant drud- 
gery to their backs and their bellies, should bestow 
some of their spare time on their heads and upon 
their minds, by some trials and essays in all the 
sorts and matters of reasoning. I have before 
mentioned mathematics, wherein algebra gives new 
helps and views to the understanding. If I pro- 
pose these, it is not, as I said, to make every man a 
thorough mathematician, or a deep -algebraist; 
but yet I think the study of them is of infinite use 
even to grown men ; first by experimentally con- 
vincing them that to make any one reason well, 
it is not enough to have parts wherewith he is 
satisfied, and that serve him well enough in his 
ordinary course: A man in those studies will 
see, that however good he may think his under- 
standing, yet in many things, and those very visi- 
ble, it mav fail him* This would take oiF that 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 23 



presumption that most men have of themselves 
in this part, and they would not be so apt to 
think their minds wanted no helps to enlarge them, 
that there could be nothing added to the acute- 
ness and penetration of their understandings. 
. Secondly, The study of mathematics would show 
them the necessity there is, in reasoning, to sepa- 
rate all the distinct ideas, and see the habitude* 
that all those concerned in the present inquiry 
have to one another, and to lay by those which re- 
late not to the proposition in hand, and wholly to 
leave them out of the reckoning. This is that, 
which in other subjects, besides quantity, is what 
is absolutely requisite to just reasoning, though 
in them it is not so easily observed, nor so care- 
fully practised. In those parts of knowledge 
where it is thought demonstration has nothing to^ 
do, men reason as it were in the lump ; and if, up- 
on a summary and confused view, or upon a par- 
tial consideration, they can raise the appearance 
of a probability, they usually rest content, espec i 
ally if it be in a dispute, where every little straw is- 
laid hold on, and every thing that can but be drawn 
in any way to give colour to the argument is ad- 
vanced with ostentation. But that mind is not in 
a posture to find the truth, that does not distinct- 
C 



34 CONDUCT OF 

}y take all the parts asunder, and, omitting what is 
not at all to the point, draw a conclusion from the 
result of all the particulars which any wa}^ influ- 
ence it. There is another no less useful habit, to 
be got by an application to mathematical demon- 
strations, and that is of using the mind to a long 
train of consequences ;. but having mentioned that 
already, I shall not here again repeat it. 

As to men whose fortunes and time is narrower, 
what may suffice them is not of that vast extent as 
may be imagined, and so comes not within the ob- 
jection. 

Nobody is under an obligation to know every 
thing. Knowledge and science in general is the 
business only of those who are at ease and leisure : 
Those who have particular callings ought to un- 
derstand them ; and it is no unreasonable propo- 
sal, nor impossible to be compassed, that they 
should think and reason right about what is their 
daily imployment. This one cannot think them 
incapable of, without levelling them with the 
brutes, and charging them with a stupidity below 
the rank of rational creatures. 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 35 



8. Religion. 



Besides his particular calling for the support of 
this life, every one has a concern in a future life, 
which he is bound to look after. This engages his 
thoughts in religion ; and here it mightily lies 
upon him to understand and reason right. Men 
therefore cannot be excused from understanding 
the words, and framing the general notions relat- 
ing to religion right. The one day of seven, be- 
sides other days of rest, allows in the Christian 
world time enough for this (had they no other idle 
hours) if they would but make use of these va- 
cancies from their daily labour, and apply them- 
selves to an improvement of knowledge, with as 
much diligence as they often do to a great many 
other things that are useless, and had but those 
that would enter them, according to their several 
capacities, in a right way to this knowledge. The 
original make of their minds is like that of other 
men, and they would be found not to want under- 
standing fit to receive the knowledge of religion^ 
if they were a little encouraged and helped in it as 
they should be \ for there are instances of very 
mean people, who have raised their minds to a 
C2 



36 CONDUCT OF 

great sense and understanding of religion; and 
though these have not been so frequent as could 
be wished, yet they are enough to clear that con- 
dition of life from a necessity of gross ignorance 5 
and to show that more might be brought to be ra- 
tional creatures and Christians (for they can hard- 
ly be thought really to be so, who, wearing the 
name, know not so much as the very principles of 
that religion) if due care were taken of them : — 
For,, if I mistake not, the peasantry lately in Francs 
(a rank of people under a much heavier pressure 
of want and poverty than the day-labourers in 
England) of the reformed religion, understood it 
much better, and could say more for it^ than those 
of a higher condition among us. 

But if it shall be concluded, that the meaner 
sort of people must give themselves up to a brutish, 
stupidity in the things of their nearest concern- 
ment, which I see no reason for, this excuses not 
those of a freer fortune and education, if they ne- 
glect their understand] ngSj and take no care to em- 
ploy them as they ought, and set them right in the 
knowledge of those things, for which principally 
they were given them. At least those whose plen- 
tiful fortunes allow them the opportunities and 
kelps of improvements^ are not so few, but that 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 37 

it might be hoped great advancements might be 
made in knowledge of all kinds, especially in that 
of the greatest concern and largest views, if men 
would make a right use of their faculties, and 
study their own understandings. 



9. Ideas. 

Outward corporeal objects, that constantly im- 
portune our senses, and captivate our appetites, 
fail not to fill our heads with lively and lasting 
ideas of that kind. Here the mind needs not be set 
upon getting greater store ; they offer themselves 
fast enough, and are usually entertained in such 
plenty, and lodged so carefully, that the mind 
wants room or attention for others that it has more 
use and need of. To fit the understanding, there- 
fore, for such reasoning as I have been above 
speaking of, care should be taken to fill it with 
moral and more abstract ideas ; for these not of- 
fering themselves to the senses, but being to be 
framed to the understanding, people are generally 
so neglectful of a faculty they are apt to think 
wants nothing, that I fear most men's minds are 
*nore unfurnished with such ideas than is ima- 
c3 



38 CONDUCT OF 

gined. They often use the words, and how can 
they be suspected to want the ideas? What I 
have said in the third book of my Essay, will ex- 
cuse me from any other answer to this question. 
But to convince people of what moment it is to 
their understandings to be furnished with such ab- 
stract ideas steady and settled in them, give me leave 
to ask, how any one shall be able to know whe- 
ther he be obliged to be just, if he has not estab- 
lished ideas in his mind of obligation and of jus- 
tice, since knowledge consists in nothing but the 
perceived agreement or disagreement of those 
ideas? — and so of all others the like, which con- 
cern our lives and manners. And if men do find 
a difficulty to see the agreement or disagreement 
of two angles which lie before their eyes, unaltera- 
ble in a diagram, how utterly impossible will it be 
to perceive it in ideas that have no other sensi- 
ble objects to represent them to the mind but 
sounds, with which they have no manner of con- 
formity, and therefore had need to be clearly set- 
tled in the mind themselves, if we would make any 
clear judgement about them ! This, therefore, is 
one of the first things the mind should be employ- 
ed about in the right conduct of the understand- 
ing, without which it is impossible it shoul;! be ca- 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 39 

pable of reasoning right about those matters. But 
in these, and all other ideas, care must be taken 
that they harbour no inconsistencies, and that 
they have a real existence where real existence is 
supposed, and are not mere chimeras with a sup- 
posed existence. 



10. Prejudice* 

Every one is forward to complain of the preju- 
dices that mislead other men or parties, as if he 

were free, and had none of his own. This being 
7 © 

objected on all sides, it is agreed, that it is a fault 
and an hinderance to knowledge. What now is 
the cure? No other but this — that every man 
should let alone other's prejudices, and examine 
his own. Nobody is convinced of his by the ac- 
cusation of another ; he recriminates by the same 
rule, and is clear. The only way to remove -this 
great cause of ignorance and error out of the 
world, is for every one impartially to examine 
himself. If others will not deal fairly with their 
own minds, does that make my errors truths, or 
ought it to make me in love with them, and will- 
ing to impose on myself? If others love cataracts 
C4 



40 CONDUCT OF 

on their eyes, should that hinder me from couch^ 
ing of mine as soon as I could ? Every one declares 
against blindness, and yet who almost is not fond 
of that which dims his sight, and keeps the clear 
light out of his mind, which should lead him into 
truth and knowledge ? False or doubtful posi- 
tions, relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep 
those in the dark from truth who build on thenu 
Such are usually the prejudices imbibed from edu- 
cation, party, reverence, fashion, interest, fyc. — - 
This is the mote which every one sees in his bro- 
ther's eye, but never regards the beam in his own ; 
for who is there almost that is ever brought fairly 
to examine his own principles, and see whether 
they are such as will bear the trial ? But yet this 
should be one of the first things every one should set 
about, and be scrupulous in, who would rightly 
conduct his understanding in the search of truth 
and knowledge. 

To those who are willing to get rid of this great 
hinderance of knowledge (for to such only I write) 
to those who would shake off this great and dan- 
gerous impostor prejudice, who dresses up false- 
hood in the likeness of truth, and so dexterously 
hoodwinks mens minds, as to keep them in the 
dark*- with a belief that they are more in the light 



THE ITNDERSTANDiyG. 41 

than any that do not see with their eyes ; I shall 
offer this one mark whereby prejudice may be 
4cnown : He that is strongly of any opinion, must 
suppose (unless he be self-condemned) that his pre- 
suasion is built upon good grounds, and that his 
assent is no greater than what the evidence of the 
truth he holds forces him to ; and that they are ar- 
guments, and not inclination or fancy, that make 
him so confident and positive in his tenets. Now 
if, after all his profession, he cannot bear any op- 
position to his opinion, if he cannot so much as 
give a patient hearing, much less examine and 
^veigh the arguments on the other side, does he 
not plainly confess it is prejudice governs him? 
and it is not the evidence of truth, but some lazy 
anticipation, some beloved presumption that he 
desires to rest undisturbed in. For if what he 
holds be, as he gives out, well fenced with evi- 
dence, and he sees it to be true, what need he fear 
to put it to the proof If his opinion be settled upon 
a firm foundation, if the arguments that support it, 
and have obtained his assent, be clear, good, and 
convincing, why should he be shy to have it tried 
whether they be proof or not? He whose assent 
goes beyond his evidence, owes this excess of his 
-adherence- only to prejudice, and does in effect own 



42 CONDUCT 0* 

it, when he refuses to hear what is offered against 
it; declaring thereby, that it is not evidence he 
seeks, but the quiet enjoyment of the opinion he is 
fond of, with a forward condemnation of all that 
may stand in opposition to it, unheard and unex- 
amined ; which, what is it but prejudice ? Qui ae- 
quum statuerit, parte inauditd altera, etiamsi aequum 
statuerit, haud aequus fuerit. He that would ac- 
quit himself in this case as a lover of truth, not 
giving way to any preoccupation or bias that may 
mislead him, must do two things that are not very 
common, nor very easy* 



11. Indifference \ 

First, he must not be in love with any opinion* 
or wish it to be true, till he knows it to be so, and 
then he will not need to wish it ; for nothing that 
is false can deserve our good wishes, nor a desire 
that it should have the place and force of truth ; 
and yet nothing is more frequent than this. Men 
are fond of certain tenets, upon no other evidence 
but respect and custom, and think they must 
maintain them, or all is gone, though they have 
never examined the ground they stand on, nox* 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 43 

have ever made out to themselves, or can make 
them out to others. We should contend earnestly 
for the truth, but we should first be sure that it 
is truth, or else we fight against God, who is the 
God of truth, and do the work of the devil, who 
is the father and propagator of lies ; and our zeal, 
though never so warm, will not excuse us, for this 
is plainly prejudice. 



12. Examine. 

Secondly, He must do that which he will find 
himself very averse to, as judging the thing unne- 
cessary, or himself incapable of doing it. He must 
try whether his principles be certainly true or not, 
and how far he may safely rely upon them. This, 
whether fewer have the heart or the skill to do, I 
shall not determine ; but this I am sure, this is that 
which every one ought to do, who professes to 
love truth, and would not impose upon himself, 
which is a surer way to be made a fool of than by 
being exposed to the sophistry of others. The dis- 
position to put any cheat upon ourselves, works 
constantly, and we are pleased with it, but are 
impatient of being bantered or misled by others. 



44 CONDUCT X>V 

The inability I here speak of, is not any natural 
defect that makes men incapable of examining 
their own principles: To such, rules of conduct- 
ing their understandings are useless, and that is N 
the case of very few. The great number is of those 
whom the ill habit of never exerting their thoughts 
has disabled ; the powers of their minds are starv- 
ed by disuse, and have lost that reach and strength 
*which nature fitted them to receive from exercise. 
Those who are in a condition to learn the first 
rules of plain arithmetic, and could be brought to 
cast up an ordinary sum, are capable of this, if 
they had but accustomed their minds to reason- 
ing ; but they that have wholly neglected the ex- 
ercise of their understandings in this way, will be 
very far at first from being able to do it, and as 
unfit for it as one unpractised in figures to cast up 
a shop-book, and perhaps think it as strange to be 
set about it. And yet it must nevertheless be con- 
fessed to be a wrong use of our understandings, to 
build our tenets (in things where we are concern- 
ed to hold the truth) upon principles that may 
lead us into error. We take our principles at hap- 
hazard, upon trust, and without ever having ex- 
amined them, and then believe a whole system, 
upon a presumption that they are true and solids 



%HZ UNDERSTANDING, 43 

and what is all this but childish, shameful, sense- 
less credulity ? 

In these two things, viz. an equal indifferency 
for all truth, I mean the receiving it in the love of 
it as truth, but not loving it for any other reason 
before we know it to be true, and in the examina- 
tion of our principles, and not receiving any for 
such, nor building on them, till we are fully con- 
vinced, as rational creatures, of their solidity, 
truth, and certainty, consists that freedom of the 
understanding which is necessary to a rational 
creature, and without which k is not truly an 
understanding. It is conceit, fancy, extravagance, 
any thing rather than understanding, if it must be 
under the constraint of receiving and holding opi- 
nions by the authority of any thing but their own> 
not fancied, but perceived evidence. This was 
rightly called imposition, and is of all other the 
worst and most dangerous sort of it ; for we im- 
pose upon ourselves, which is the strongest imposi- 
tion of all others ; and we impose upon ourselves 
in that part which ought with the greatest care to 
be kept free from all imposition. The world is apfc 
to cast great blame on those who have an indiffe- 
rency for opinions, especially in religion. I fear 
this is the foundation of great error ar-d worse 



46 CONDUCT OF 

consequences. To be indifferent which of two 
opinions is true, is the right temper of the mind 
that preserves it from being imposed on, and dis- 
poses it to examine with that indifferency, till it 
has done its best to find the truth ; and this is the 
only direct and safe way to it ; but to be indifferent 
whether we embrace falsehood or truth or no, is 
the great road to error* Those who are not indif- 
ferent which opinion is true, are guilty of this ; 
they suppose, without examining, that what they 
hold is true, and then think they ought to be zeal- 
ous for it. Those, it is plain by their warmth and 
eagerness, are not indifferent for their own opi- 
nions, but methinks are very indifferent whether 
they be true or false, since they cannot endure to 
have any doubts raised, or objections made against 
them ; and it is visible they never have made any 
themselves, and so never having examined them, 
know not, nor are concerned, as they should be, 
to know whether they be true or false. 

These are the common and most general mis- 
carriages which I think men should avoid or recti- 
fy in a right conduct of their understandings, and 
should be particularly taken care of in education ;. 
the business whereof, in respect of knowledge, is 
not, a.s I think ? to perfect a learner in all or any 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 47 

one of the sciences, but to give his mind that free- 
dom, that disposition, and those habits that may 
enable him to attain any part of knowledge he 
shall apply himself to, or stand in need of, in the 
future course of his life. 

This, and this only is well principling, and not 
the instilling a reverence and veneration for cer- 
tain dogmas, under the specious title of principles, 
■which are often so remote from that truth and 
evidence which belongs to principles, that they 
ought to be rejected as false and erroneous, and is 
often the cause to men so. educated, when they 
come abroad into the world, and find they cannot 
maintain the principles so taken up and rested in, 
to cast off all principles, and turn perfect sceptics, 
regardless of knowledge and virtue. 

There are several weaknesses and defects in the 
understanding, either from the natural temper of 
the mind, or ill habits taken up, which hinder it 
in its progress to knowledge. Of these there are 
as many possibly to be found if the mind were 
thoroughly studied, as there are diseases of the 
body, each whereof clogs and disables the under- 
standing to some degree, and therefore deserves to 
be looked after and cured. I shall set down some 
few to excite men, especially those who make 



48 "CONDUCT OF 

knowledge their business, to look into themselves^ 
and observe whether they do not indulge some 
weakness, allow some miscarriages in the manage- 
ment of their intellectual faculty, which is preju- 
dicial to them in the search of truths 



13: Observation* 

Particular matters of fact are the undoubted 
foundations on which our civil and natural know- 
ledge is built ; the benefit the understanding makes- 
of them, is to draw from them conclusions, which 
may be as standing rules of knowledge, and conse- 
quently of practice. The mind often makes not 
that benefit it should of the information it receives- 
from the accounts of civil or natural historians, in 
being too forward or too slow in making observa* 
tions on the particular facts recorded in them. 

There are those who are very assiduous in read* 
ing, and yet do not much advance their knowledge 
by it. They are delighted- with the stories that are 
told, and perhaps can tell them again, for they 
make all they read nothing but history to them- 
selves ; but not reflecting on it, not making to- 
taemjselves observations from what they read, they 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 49 

are very little improved by all that crowd of par- 
ticulars, that either pass through, or lodge them- 
selves in their understandings. They dream on ia 
a constant course of reading and cramping them" 
selves, but, not digesting any thing, it produces- 
nothing but an heap of crudities. 

If their memories retain well, one may say they 
have the materials of knowledge, but like those for 
building, they are of no advantage, if there be no 
other use made of them but to let them lie heaped 
up together. Opposite to these, there are others* 
who lose the improvement they should make of 
matters of fact, by a quite contrary conduct ; they 
are apt to draw general conclusions, and raise 
axioms from every particular they may meet with. 
These make as little true benefit of history as the 
other ; nay, being of forward and active spirits, 
receive more harm by it ; it being of worse con- 
sequence to steer one's thoughts by a wrong rule, 
than to have none at all, error doing to busy men 
much more harm, than ignorance to the slow and 
sluggish. Between these, those seem to do best, 
who taking material and useful hints sometimes 
from single matters of fact, carry them in their 
minds to be judged of, by what they shall find in 
history to comfirm or reverse these imperfect ob- 

D 



50 CONDUCT OF 

servations ; which may be established into rules 
fit to be relied on, when they are justified by a suf- 
ficient and wary induction of particulars. He f 
that makes no such reflections on what he reads, 
only loads his mind with a rhapsody of tales fit in 
winter-nights for the entertainment of others ; and 
he that will improve every matter of fact into a 
maxim, will abound in contrary observations, that 
can be of no other use but to perplex and pudder 
him, if he compares them, or else to misguide him, 
if he gives himself up to the authority of that, 
which for its novelty, or for some other fancy, best 
pleases him. 



14. Bias. 

Next to these, we may place those who suffer 
their own natural tempers and passions they are 
possessed with to influence their judgments, espe- 
cially of men and things that may any way relate 
to their present circumstances and interest. Truth 
is all simple, all pure, will bear no mixture of any 
thing else with it. It is rigid and inflexible to any 
bye interests ; and so should the understanding be, 
whose use and excellency lies in conforming itself 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 51 

to it. To think of every thing just as it is in itself, 
is the proper business of the understanding, though 
it be not that which men always employ it to* 
This all men, at first hearing, allow is the right use 
every one should make of his understanding. No- 
body will be at such an open defiance with com- 
mon sense, as to profess that we should not en- 
deavour to know, and think of things as they are in 
themselves, and yet there is nothing more frequent 
than to do the contrary * r and men are apt to ex- 
cuse themselves, and think they have reason to do 
so, if they have but a pretence that it is for God, 
or a good cause, that is in effect for themselves, 
their own persuasion or party ; for to those in their 
turns the several sects of men, especially in matters 
of religion, entitle God and a good cause. But God 
requires not men to wrong or misuse their faculties 
for him, nor to lie to others or themselves for his 
sake ; which they purposely do, who will not suf- 
fer their understandings to have right conceptions 
of the things proposed to them, and designedly re- 
strain themselves from having just thoughts of every 
thing, as far as they are concerned to inquire. And 
as for a good cause, that needs not such ill helps ; 
if it be good, truth will support it, and it has no 
need of fallacy or falsehood. 
d2 



52 



CONDUCT OF 



15. Arguments. 

Very much of kin to this, is the hunting after 
arguments to make good one side of a question, and 
wholly to neglect and refuse those which favour 
the other side. What is this but wilfully to mis- 
guide the understanding, and is so far from giving 
truth its due value, that it wholly debases it; es- 
pouse opinions that best comport with their power, 
profit, or credit, and then «eek arguments to sup- 
port them? Truth, light upon this way is of no more 
avail to us than error ; for what is so taken up by 
us, may be false as well as true ; and he has not 
done his duty who has thus stumbled upon truth 
in his way to preferment. 

There is another but more innocent way of col- 
lecting arguments, very familiar among bookish 
men, which is to furnish themselves with the argu- 
ments which they meet with pro and con in the ques- 
tions they study. This helps them not to judge 
right, nor argue strongly, but only to talk copiously 
on either side, without being steady and settled in 
their own judgements ; for such arguments gather- 
ed from other mens thoughts, floating only in the 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 53 

memory, are there indeed ready to supply copi- 
ous talk with some appearance of reason, but are 
far from helping us to judge right. Such variety 
of arguments only distract the understanding that 
relies on them, unless it has gone farther than such 
a superficial way of examining. — This is to quit 
truth for appearance, only to serve our vanity. The 
sure and only way to get true knowledge, is to form 
in our minds clear settled notions of things, with 
names annexed to those determined ideas. These 
we are to consider, and with their several relations 
and habitudes, and not amuse ourselves with float- 
ing names, and words of indetermined signification, 
which we can use in several senses to serve a turn. 
It is in the perception of the habitudes and respects 
our ideas have one to another, that real knowledge 
consists ; and when a man once perceives how r far 
they agree or disagree one with another, he will be 
able to judge of what other people say, and will not 
need to be led by the arguments of others, which 
are many of them nothing but plausible sophistry. 
This will teach him to state the question right, and 
see whereon it turns, and thus he will stand upon 
his own legs, and know by his own understanding; 
whereas by collecting and learning arguments by 
heart, he will be but a retainer to others ; and when 
D3 



54 CONDUCT OP 

any one questions the foundations they are built 
upon, he will be at a nonplus, and be fain to give 
up his implicit knowledge. 



16. Haste, 

Labour for labour-sake is against nature. The 
understanding, as well as all the other faculties, 
chooses always the shortest way to its end, would 
presently obtain the knowledge it is about, and then 
set upon some new inquiry. But this, whether 
laziness or haste, often misleads it, and makes it 
content itself with improper ways of search, and 
such as will not serve the turn ; sometimes it 
rests upon testimony, when testimony of right has 
nothing to do, because it is easier to believe than 
to be scientifically instructed ; sometimes it con- 
tents itself with one argument, and rests satisfied 
with that, as it were a demonstration ; whereas the 
thing under proof is not capable of demonstration, 
and therefore must be submitted to the trial of pro- 
babilitcs, and all the material arguments pro and 
con be examined and brought to a balance. In 
some cases the mind is determined by probable to- 
pics in inquiries, where demonstration maybe had, 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 5 J 

All these and several others, which laziness, impa- 
tience, custom, and want of use and attention, lead 
men into, are misapplications of the understanding 
in the search of truth. In every question the na- 
ture and manner of the proof it is capable of should 
be considered, to make our inquiry such as it should 
be. This would save a great deal of frequently em- 
ployed pains, and lead us sooner to that discovery 
and possession of truth we are capable of. The 
multiplying variety of arguments, especially frivo- 
lous ones, such as are all that are merely verbal, is 
not lost labour, but cumbers the memory to no pur- 
pose, and serves only to hinder it from seizing and 
holding of the truth in all those cases which are ca- 
pable of demonstration. In such a way of proof 
the truth and certainty is seen, and the mind fully 
possesses itself of it ; when in the other way of as- 
sent, it only hovers about it, is amused with uncer- 
tainties. In this superficial way indeed, the mind 
is capable of more variety of plausible talk, but is 
not enlarged as it should be in its knowledge. It 
is to this same haste and impatience of the mind 
also, that a not due tracing of the arguments to 
their true foundation, is owing ; men see a little, 
presume a great deal, and so jump to the conclu- 
sion. This is a short way to fancy and conceit, 

D 4 



56 CONDUCT OF 

and (if firmly embraced) to opiniatry, but is cer- 
tainly the farthest way about to knowledge. For 
he that will know, must by the connection of the 
proofs see the truth, and the ground it stands on ; 
and therefore, if he has for haste skipped over what 
he should have examined, he must begin and go 
over all again, or else he will never come to know-^ 
lecke. 



3 7. Desultory. 

Another fault of as ill consequence as this, which, 
proceeds also from laziness with a mixture of vani- 
ty, is the skipping from one sort of knowledge to 
another. Some men's tempers are quickly weary 
of any one thing ; constancy and assiduity is what 
they cannot bear ; the same study long continued 
in, is as intolerable to them, as the appearing long 
in the same clothes or fashion is to a court-lady. 



]8. Smattering. 

Others, that they may seem universally knowing, 
get a little smattering in every thing. Both these 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 57 

may fill their heads with superficial notions of 
things, but are very much out of the way of attain* 
ing truth or knowledge. 



19. Universality. 

I do not here speak against the taking a taste of 
every sort of knowledge ; it is certainly very useful 
and necessary to form the mind ; but then it must 
be done in a different way, and to a different end ; 
not for talk and vanity, to fill the head with shreds 
of all kinds, that he who is possessed of such a 
frippery, may be able to match the discourses of 
all he shall meet with, as if nothing could come 
amiss to him ; and his head was so well stored a 
magazine, that nothing could be proposed which 
he was not master of, and was readily furnished to 
entertain any one on. This is an excellency in- 
deed, and a great one too, to have a real and true 
knowledge in all, or most of the objects of contem- 
plation. But it is what the mind of one and the same 
man can hardly attain unto ; and the instances are 
so few of those who have in any measure approach- 
ed towards it, that I know not whether they are to 
be proposed as examples in the ordinary conduct 



58 CONDUCT OF 

of the understanding. For a man to understand, 
fully the business of his particular calling in the 
commonwealth, and of religion, which is his cal- 
ling as he is a man in the world, is usually enough 
to take up his whole time ; and there are few that 
inform themselves in these, which is every man's 
proper and peculiar business, so to the bottom as 
they should do. But though this be so, and there 
are very few men that extend their thoughts to- 
wards universal knowledge, yet I do not doubt, but 
if the right way were taken, and the methods of in- 
quiry were ordered as they should be, men of little 
business and great leisure might go a great deal far- 
ther in it than is usually done. To return to the 
business in hand, the end and use of a little insight 
in those parts of knowledge, which are not a man's 
proper business, is to accustom our minds to all sorts 
of ideas, and the proper ways of examining their 
habitudes and relations. This gives the mind a 
freedom ; and the exercising the understanding in 
the several ways of inquiry and reasoning, which 
the most skilful have made use of, teaches the mind 
sagacity and wariness, and a suppleness to apply it- 
self more closely and dexterously to the bents and 
turns of the matter in all its researches. Besides, 
this universal taste of all the sciences, with an in- 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 59 

differency before the mind is possessed with any one 
in particular, and grown into love and admiration 
of what is made its darling, will prevent another evil 
very commonly to be observed in those, who have 
from the beginning been seasoned only by one part 
of knowledge. Let a man be given up to the con- 
templation of one sort of knowledge, and that will 
become every thing. The mind will take such a 
tincture from a familiarity with that object, that 
every thing else, how remote soever, will be brought 
\mder the same view. A metaphysician will bring 
ploughing and gardening immediately to abstract 
notions ; the history of nature shall signify nothing to 
him. An alchymist, on the contrary, shall reduce di- 
vinity to the maxims of his laboratory, explain mo- 
rality by sal, sulphur, and mercury, and allegorise the 
scripture itself, and the sacred mysteries thereof, into 
the philosophers stone. And I heard once a man, 
who had a more than ordinary excellency in music, 
seriously accommodate Moses's seven days of the 
first week to the notes of music, as if from thence 
had been taken the measure and method of the 
creation. It is. of no small consequence to keep 
the mind from such a possession, which I think is 
best done by giving it a fair and equal view of the 
whole intellectual world, wherein it may see the 



60 CONDUCT OF 

order, rank, and beauty of the whole, and give a just 
allowance to the distinct provinces of the several 
sciences in the due order and usefulness of each of 1 
them. 

If this be that which old men will not think ne- 
cessary, nor be easily brought to, it is fit at least 
that it should be practised in the breeding of the 
young. The business of education, as I have al- 
ready observed, is not, as I think, to make them 
perfect in any one of the sciences, but so to open 
and dispose their minds as may best make them 
capable of any, when they shall apply themselves 
to it. If men are for a long time accustomed only 
to one sort or method of thoughts, their minds grow 
stiff in it, and do not readily turn to another. It is 
therefore to give them this freedom, that I think 
they should be made to look into all sorts of know- 
ledge, and exercise their understandings in so wide 
a variety and stock of knowledge. But I do not 
propose it as a variety and stock of knowledge,, 
but a variety and freedom of thinking ; as an in* 
crease of the powers and activity of the mind, not 
as an enlargement of its possessions.. 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 6l 



20. Reading. 

This is that which I think great readers are apt to 
he mistaken in. Those who have read of every 
thing, are thought to understand every thing too ; 
but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind 
only with materials of knowledge ; it is thinking 
makes what we read ours. We are of the rumina- 
ting kind ; and it is not enough to cram ourselves 
with a great load of collections ; unless we chew 
them over again, they will not give us strength and 
nourishment. There are indeed in some w r riters 
visible instances of deep thoughts, close and acute 
reasoning, and ideas well pursued. The light these 
would give would be of great use, if their reader 
would observe and imitate them ; all the rest at 
best are but particulars fit to be turned into know- 
ledge ; but that can be done only by our own medi- 
tation, and examining the reach, force, and cohe- 
rence of what is said ; and then as far as we appre- 
hend and see the connection of ideas, so far it is 
ours ; without that, it is but so much loose matter 
floating in our brain. The memory may be stored, 
but the judgement is little better, and the stock of 



62 CONDUCT OF 

knowledge not increased, by being able to repeat 
what others have said, or produce the arguments 
we have found in them. Such a knowledge as this, 
is but knowledge by hearsay, and the ostentation of 
it is at best but talking by rote, and very often upon 
weak and wrong principles ; for all that is to be 
found in books, is not built upon true foundations r 
nor always rightly deduced from the principles it 
is pretended to be built on. Such an examen as 
is requisite to discover that, every reader's mind is 
not forward to make > especially in those who have 
given themselves up to a party, and only hunt for 
what they can scrape together, that may favour 
and support the tenets of it. Such men wilfully ex- 
clude themselves from truth, and from all true be- 
nefit to be received by reading. Others of more in- 
differency often want attention and industry. The 
mind is backward in itself to be at the pains to 
trace every argument to its original, and to see 
upon what basis it stands, and how firmly ; but yet 
it is this that gives so much the advantage to one 
man more than another in reading. The mind 
should, by severe rules, be tied down to this, at first, 
uneasy task ; use and exercise will give it facility ; 
so that those who are accustomed to it, readily, as 
it were with one cast of the eye, take a view of the 



THE UNDERSTANDING, 63 

argument, and presently, in most cases, see where 
it bottoms. Those who have got this faculty, one 
may say, have got the true key of books, and the 
clue to lead them, through the mizmaze of variety 
of opinions and authors, to truth and certainty. 
This young beginners should be entered in, and 
showed the use of, that they may profit by their 
reading. Those who are strangers to it will be apt 
to think it too great a clog in the way of men's stu- 
dies, and they will suspect they shall meet but small 
progress, if, in the books they read, they must stand 
to examine and unravel every argument, and fol- 
low it step by step up to its original. 

I answer, this is a good objection, and ought to 
weigh with those whose reading is designed for 
much talk and little knowledge, and I have nothing 
to say to it. But 1 am here inquiring into the con- 
duct of the understanding in its progress towards 
knowledge ; and to those who aim at that, I may 
say, that he, who fair and softly goes steadily for- 
ward in a course that points right, will sooner be 
at his journey's end, than he that runs after every 
one he meets, though he gallop all day full-speed. 

To which let me add, that this way of thinking 
on, and profiting by what we read, will be a clog 
and rub to any one only in the beginning ; when 



64 CONDUCT OF 

custom and exercise has made it familiar, it will 
be dispatched in most occasions, without resting or 
interruption in the course of our reading. The mo- 51 
tions and views of a mind exercised that way, are 
wonderfully quick ; and a man used to such sort 
of reflections, sees as much at one glimpse as 
would require a long discourse to lay before an- 
other, and make out in an entire and gradual de- 
duction. Besides, that when the first difficulties 
are over, the delight and sensible advantage it 
brings, mightily encourages and enlivens the mind 
in reading, which without this is very improperly 
called study. 



2 1 . Intermediate Principles* 

As an help to this, I think it may be proposed, 
that, for the saving the long progression of the 
thoughts to remote and first principles in every 
case, the mind should provide it several stages; 
that is to say, intermediate principles, which it 
might have recourse to in the examining those po- 
sitions that come in its way. These, though they 
are not self-evident principles, yet if they have been 
made out from them, by a wary and unquestionable 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 65 

deduction, may be depended on as certain and in- 
fallible truths, and serve as unquestionable truths to 
prove other points depending on them by a nearer 
and shorter view than remote and general maxims* 
These may serve as land-marks to show what lies 
in the direct way of truth, or is quite besides it. 
And thus mathematicians do, who do not in every 
new problem run it back to the first axioms, 
through all the whole train of intermediate propo- 
sitions. Certain theorems, that they have settled 
to themselves upon sure demonstration, serve to re- 
solve to them multitudes of propositions which de- 
pend on them, and are as firmly made out from 
thence, as if the mind went fresh over every link 
of the whole chain that ties them to first self-evi- 
dent principles. Only in other sciences great care 
is to be taken that they establish those intermediate 
principles with as much caution, exactness, and 
indiffereiicy, as mathematicians use in the settling 
any of their great theorems. When this is not 
done, but men take up the principles in this or that 
science upon credit, inclination, interest, fyc* in 
haste, without due examination, and most unques- 
tionable proof, they lay a trap for themselves, and 
as much as in them lies captivate, their understand- 
ings to mistake, falsehood, and error. 

E 



66 CGNDlTCT OP 



22. Partiality. 

As there is a partiality to opinions, which, as \\ r t 
have already observed, is apt to mislead the under- 
standing ; so there is often a partiality to studies, 
which is prejudicial also to knowledge and improve- 
ment. Those sciences, which men are particularly 
versed in, they are apt to value and extol, as if that 
part of knowledge, which -every one has acquainted 
himself with, were that alone which was worth tht 
having, and all the rest were idle, and empty 
amusements, comparatively of no use or impor- 
tance. This is the effect of ignorance and not 
knowledge, the being vainly puffed up with a fla- 
tulency, arising from a weak and narrow compre- 
hension. It is not amiss that every one should re- 
lish the science that he has made his peculiar study ; 
a view of its beauties, and a sense of its usefulness, 
carries a man on with the more delight and warmth 
in the pursuit and improvement of it ; but the con- 
tempt of all other knowledge, as if it were nothing 
in comparison of law or physic, of astronomy or 
chemistry, or perhaps some yet meaner part of 
.knowledge, wherein I have got some smattering, m 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 6j 

am somewhat advanced, is not only a mark of a> 
vain or little mind, but does this prejudice in th6 
conduct of the understanding, that it coops it up 
within narrow bounds, and hinders it from looking 
abroad into other provinces of the intellectual world, 
more beautiful possibly, and more fruitful than that 
which it had till then laboured in ; wherein it- 
fnight find, besides new knowledge, ways or hints" 
whereby it might be enabled the better to cultivate 
its own. 



23. Tlieology. 

There is indeed one science (as they are now dis- 
tinguished) incomparably above all the rest, where 
it is not by corruption narrowed into a trade or 
faction, for mean or ill ends, and secular interests-; 
I mean theology, which containing the knowledge 
of God and his creatures, our duty to him and our 
fellow-creatures, and a view of our present and fu- 
ture state, is the comprehension of all other know- 
ledge directed to its true end ; i. e. the honour and 
veneration of the Creator, and the happiness of 
mankind. This is that noble study which is every 
man s duty, and every one that can be called a ra- 



68 CONDUCT 0# 

tional creature is capable of. The works of nature, 
and the words of revelation, display it to mankind 
in characters so lar«;e and visible, that those who 
are not quite blind may in them read and see the 
jfirst principles and most necessary parts of it ; and 
from thence, as they have time and industry, may 
be enabled to go on to the more abstruse parts of it r 
and penetrate into those infinite depths filled with 
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. This is that 
science which would truly enlarge mens minds, 
were it studied, or permitted to be studied every 
where, with that freedom, love of truth and charity 
which it teaches, and were not made, contrary to 
its nature, the occasion of strife, faction, malignity, 
and narrow impositions. I shall say no more here 
of this, but that it is undoubtedly a wrong use of my 
understanding, to make it the rule and measure of 
another man's ; a use which it is neither fit for, nor 
capable of. 



24. Partiality. 

This partiality, where it is not premitted an autho- 
rity to render all other studies insignificant or con- 
temptible, is often indulged so far as to be relied 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 69 

upon, and made use of in other parts of knowledge, 
to which it does not at all belong, and wherewith it 
has no manner of affinity. Some men have so used 
their heads to mathematical figures, that, giving a 
preference to the methods of that science, they in- 
troduce lines and diagrams into their study of divi- 
nity, or politic inquiries, as if nothing could be 
known without them ; and others, accustomed to 
retired speculations, run natural philosophy into 
metaphysical notions, and the abstract generalities 
of logic ; and how often may one meet with reli- 
gion and morality treated of in the terms of the la- 
boratory, and thought to be improved by the me- 
thods and notions of chemistry ? But he that will 
take care of the conduct of his understanding to 
direct it right to the knowledge of things, must 
avoid those undue mixtures, and not, by a fondness 
for what he has found useful and necessary in one, 
transfer it to another science, where it serves only 
to perplex and confound the understanding. It is 
a certain truth, that res nolunt male administrari, 
it is no less certain res nolunt male intelligi. Things 
themselves are to be considered as they are in them- 
selves, and then they will show us in what way they 
are to be understood ; for to have right conceptions 
about them, we must bring our understandings to 
E 3 



70 CONDUCT OF 

the inflexible natures, and unalterable relations of 
things, and not endeavour to bring things to any 
preconceived notions of our own. 

There is another partiality very commonly obser- 
vable in men of study, no less prejudicial nor ridi- 
culous than the former ; and that is a fantastical 
and wild-attributing all knowledge to the ancients 
alone, or to the moderns. This raving upon anti- 
quity in matter.pf poetry, Horace has wittily de- 
scribed and exposed in one of his satires* The same 
sort of madness may be found in reference to all the 
other sciences. Some will not admit an opinion 
not authorised by men of old, who were then all 
giants in knowledge. Nothing is to be put into the 
treasury of truth or knowledge, which has not the 
stamp of Greece or Rome upon it ; and, since 
their days, will scarce allow that men have been 
able to see, think, or write. Others, with a like ex- 
travagancy, contemn all that the ancients have left 
us, and being taken with the modern inventions and 
discoveries, lay by all that went before, as if what- 
ever is called old must have the decay of time upon 
it, and truth too were liable to mould and rottenness. 
Men, I think, have been much the same for natural 
endowments in all times. Fashion, discipline, and 
education, have put eminent differences in the 



THE UNDERSTANDING. £1 

ages of several countries, and made one generation 
much differ from another in arts and sciences ; but 
truth is always the same ; time alters it not, nor is 
it the better or worse for being of ancient or modern 
tradition. Many were eminent in former ages of 
the world for their discovery, and delivery of it ; 
but though the knowledge they have left us be 
worth our study, yet they exhausted not all its trea^ 
sure ; they left a great deal for the industry and 
sagacity of after ages, and so shall we. That was 
once new to them, which any one now receives 
with veneration for its antiquity, nor was it the worse 
for appearing as a novelty ; and that which is now 
embraced for its newness, will to posterity be old, 
but not thereby be less true or less genuine. There 
is no occasion on this account to oppose the an- 
cients and the moderns to one another, or to be 
squeamish on either side. He that wisely conducts 
his mind in the pursuit of knowledge, will gather 
"what lights, and get what helps he can from either 
of them, from whom they are best to be had, with- 
out adoring the errors, or rejecting the truths, 
which he may rind mingled in them. 

Another partiality may be observed, in some to 
vulgar, in others to heterodox tenets. — Some are apt 
fo conclude, that what is the common opinion can- 
£.4 



72 CONDUCT OF 

not but be true ; so many mens eyes they think 
cannot but see right ; so many mens understandings 
of all sorts cannot be deceived, and therefore will not 
venture to look beyond the received notions of the 
place and age, nor have so presumptuous a thought 
as to be wiser than their neighbours. — They are con- 
tent to go with the crowd, and so go easily, which 
they think is going right, or at least serves them as 
well. But however vox populi vox Dei has prevail- 
ed as a maxim, yet I do not remember wherever 
God delivered his oracles by the multitude > or na- 
ture, truths by the herd. On the other side, some 
fly all common opinions as either false or frivolous. 
The title of many-headed beast is a sufficient rea- 
son to them to conclude, that no truths of weight 
or consequence can be lodged there. Vulgar opi- 
nions are suited to vulgar capacities, and adapted 
to the ends of those that govern. He that will 
know the truth of things, must leave the common 
and beaten track, w T hich none but weak and servile 
minds are satisfied to trudge along continually in. 
Such nice palates relish nothing but strange notions 
quite out of the way, Whatever is commonly re- 
ceived, has the mark of the beast on it ; and they 
think it a lessening to them to hearken to it, or re- 
ceive it ; their mind runs only after paradoxes; these 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 73 

tfiey seek, these they embrace, these alone they 
vent, and so, as they think, distinguish themselves 
from the vulgar ; but common or uncommon are 
not the marks to distinguish truth or falsehood, and 
therefore should not be any bias to us in our in- 
quiries. We should not judge of things by mens 
opinions, but of opinions by things. The multitude 
reason but ill, and therefore may be well suspected, 
and cannot be relied on, nor should be followed as 
a sure guide ; but philosophers, who have quitted 
the orthodoxy of the community, and the popular 
doctrines of their countries, have fallen into as ex- 
travagant and as absurd opinions as ever common 
reception countenanced. It would be madness to 
refuse to breathe the common air, or quench one's 
thirst with water, because the rabble use them to 
these purposes ; and if there are conveniencies of life 
which common use reaches not, it is not reason to 
reject them, because they are not grown into the 
ordinary fashion of the country, and every villager 
doth not know them. 

Truth, whether in or out of fashion, is the mea- 
sure of knowledge, and the business of the under- 
standing ; whatsoever is besides that, however au- 
thorised by consent, or recommended by rarity, -is 
nothing but ignorance, or something worse. 



74 CONDUCT 0* 

.Another sort of partiality there is, whereby meji 
impose upon themselves, and by it make their ready- 
ing little useful to themselves ; I mean the making 
use of the opinions of writers, and laying stress upon 
their authorities, wherever they find them to favour 
their own opinions. 

There is nothing almost has done more harm to 
men dedicated to letters, than giving the name of 
study to reading, and making a man of great read* 
ing to be the same with a man of great knowledge, 
or at least to be a title of honour. All that can be 
recorded in writing, are only facts or reasonings.— r 
act s are of three sorts : — 

1 . Merely of natural agents, observable in the 
ordinary operations of bodies one upon another j 
whether in the visible course of things left to them* 
selves, or in experiments made by men, applying 
agents and patients to one another after a peculiar 
and artificial manner. 

2. Of voluntary agents, more especially the ac- 
tions of men in society, which makes civil and mo* 
ral history. 

3. Of opinions. 

In these three consists, as it seems to me, that 
which commonly has the name of learning, to which 
perhaps some may add a distinct head of critical 



THE UNDERSTANDING 75 

writings, which indeed at bottom is nothing but 
matter of fact, and resolves itself into this, that 
such a man, or set of men, used such a word or 
phrase in such a sense, i.e. that they made such 
sounds the marks of such ideas. 

Under reasonings, I comprehend all the disco- 
veries of general truths made by human reason, whe* 
ther found by intuition, demonstration, or probable 
deductions.- — And this is that which is, if not alone 
knowledge (because the truth or probability of par- 
ticular propositions may be known too,) yet is, as 
may be supposed, most properly the business of 
those who pretend to improve their understandings, 
and make themselves knowing by reading. 

Books and reading are looked upon to be the 
great helps of the understanding, and instruments 
of knowledge, as it must be allowed that they are ; 
and yet I beg. leave to question whether these do 
not prove an hinderance to many, and keep several 
bookish men from attaining to solid and true know- 
ledge. This, 1 think, I may be permitted to say, 
that there is no part wherein the understanding 
needs a more careful and wary conduct, than m 
the use of books ; without which they will prove 
rather innocent amusements than profitable employ- 



■Y6 K conduct of 

ments of our time, and bring but small additions to 
our knowledge. 

There is not seldom to be found even amongst 
those who aim at knowledge, who with an unwearied 
industry employ their whole time in books, who 
scarce allow themselves time to eat or sleep, but 
read, and read, and read on, but yet make no great 
advances in real knowledge, though there be no de- 
fect in their intellectual faculties, to which their 
little progress can be imputed. The mistake here is, 
that it is usually supposed, that by reading, the au- 
thor's knowledge is transfused into the reader's un- 
derstanding ; and so it is, but not by bare reading, but 
by reading and understanding what he writ ; whereby 
I mean, not barely comprehending what is affirmed 
-or denied in each proposition (though that great 
readers do not always think themselves concerned 
precisely to do) but to see and follow the train of 
his reasonings, observe the strength and clearness of 
their connection, and examine upon what they bot- 
tom. Without this a man may read the discourses 
of a very rational author, writ in a language, and 
in propositions that he very well understands, and yet 
acquire not one jot of his knowledge, which consist- 
ing only in the perceived, certain, or probable con- 
nection of the ideas made use of in his reasonings, 



THE tTNDERSTANDINfi, 77 

the reader's knowledge is no farther increased than 
he perceives that ; so much as he sees of this con- 
nection, so much he knows of the truth or probabil- 
ity of that author's opinions. 

All that he relies on without this perception, he 
takes upon trust, upon the author's credit, without 
any knowledge of it at all. This makes me not at 
all wonder to see some men so abound in citations, 
and build so much upon authorities, it being the 
sole foundation on which they bottom most of their 
own tenets ; so that in effect they have but a second- 
hand, or implicit knowledge, i. e . are in the right, 
if such an one, from whom they borrowed it, were 
in the right in that opinion which they took from 
him, which indeed is no knowledge at all. Writers 
of this or former ages may be good witnesses of mat- 
ters of fact which they deliver, which we may do 
well to take upon their authority ; but their credit 
can go no farther than this ; it cannot at all affect 
the truth and falsehood of opinions, which have 
no other sort of trial but reason and proof, which 
they themselves made use of to make themselves 
knowing, and so must others too that will par- 
take in their knowledge. Indeed it is an advan- 
tage that they have been at the pains to find out 
the proofs, and lay them in that order that may 



<T5 CONDUCT OR 

show the truth or probability of their conclusions ; 
-and for this we owe them great acknowledgments 
for saving us the pains in searching out those proofs 
which they have collected for us, and which possi- 
bly, after all our pains, we might not have found, 
nor been able to have set them in so good a light as 
that which they left them us in. Upon this account 
we are mightily beholden to judicious writers of all 
ages, for those discoveries and discourses they have 
left behind them for our instruction, if we know 
how to make a right use of them ; which is not to 
^un them over in an hasty perusal, and perhaps 
lodge their opinions, or some remarkable passages 
in our memories, but to enter into their reasonings, 
examine their proofs, and then judge of the truth or 
falsehood, probability or improbability of what they 
advance ; not by any opinion we have entertained 
of the author, but by the evidence he produces, and 
the conviction he affords us, drawn from things 
themselves. Knowing is seeing ; and if it be so, it 
is madness to persuade ourselves that we do so by 
'another man's eyes, let him use ever so many words 
to tell us that what he asserts is very visible. Till we 
ourselves see it with our own eyes, and perceive it 
by our own understandings, we are as much in the 
dark, and as void of knowledge as before, let u* be- 
lieve any learned author as much as we will. 



T&E UNDERSTANDING. f J 

EtfCLlD and Archimedes are allowed to be 
knowing, and to have demonstrated what they say ; 
and yet whoever shall read over their writings with- 
out perceiving the connection of their proofe, and 
seeing what they show, though he may understand 
all their words, yet he is not the more knowing.— 
He may believe indeed, but does not know what 
they say, and so is not advanced one jot in mathe- 
matical knowledge by all his reading of those ap- 
proved mathematicians. 



25. Haste. 

^The eagerness and strong bent of the mind after 
knowledge, if not warily regulated, is often an hin» 
derance to it. It still presses into farther discoveries 
and new objects, and catches at the variety of 
knowledge, and therefore often stays not long enough 
on what is before it, to look into it as it should, 
iov haste to pursue what is yet out of sight. He 
that rides post through a country, may be able, from 
the transient view, to tell how in general the parts 
lie, and may be able to give some loose description 
of here a mountain, and there a plain, here a mo- 
-rasSj and there a river ; woodland in one part, and 



£0 CONDUCT OB 

savannahs in another. Such superficial ideas ancfr 
observations as these, he may collect in gallopping 
over it ; but the more useful observations of the 
soil, plants, animals, and inhabitants, with their 
several sorts and properties, must necessarily escape 
him ; and it is seldom men ever discover the rich 
mines, without some digging. Nature commonly 
lodges her treasure and jewels in rocky ground. If 
the matter be knotty, and the sense lies deep, the 
mind must stop and buckle to it, and stick upon it 
with labour and thought, and close contemplation, 
and not leave it till it has mastered the difficulty, 
and got possession of truth. But here care must be 
taken to avoid the other extreme ; a man must not 
stick at every useless nicety, and expect mysteries 
of science in every trivial question or scruple that 
he may raise. He that will stand to pick up and 
examine every pebble that comes in his way, is as 
unlikely to return enriched and laden with jewels, 
as the other that travelled full speed. Truths are 
not the better nor the worse for their obviousness or 
difficulty, but their value is to be measured by their 
usefulness and tendency. Insignificant observations 
should not take up any of our minutes, and those 
that enlarge our view, and give light towards far- 
ther and useful discoveries, should not be neglected, 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 81 

though they stop our course, and spend some of our 
time in a fixed attention. 

There is another haste that does often, and will 
mislead the mind, if it be left to itself, and its own 
conduct. The understanding is naturally forward, 
not only to learn its knowledge by variety (which 
makes it skip over one to get speedily to another 
part of knowledge,) but also eager to enlarge its views, 
by running too fast into general observations and 
conclusions, without a due examination of particu- 
lars enough whereon to found those general axioms. 
This seems to enlarge their stock, but it is of fan- 
cies, not realities. Such theories, built upon nar- 
row foundations, stand but weakly, and if they fall 
not of themselves, are at least very hardly to be 
supported against the assaults of opposition ; and 
thus men being too hasty to erect to themselves 
general notions and ill-grounded theories, find thcm- 
elves deceived in their stock of knowledge, when 
they come to examine their hastily assumed maxims 
themselves, or to have them attacked by others. — 
General observations, drawn from particulars, are 
;he jewels of knowledge, comprehending great store 
in a little room ; but they are therefore to be made 
ivith the greater care and caution, lest, if we take 
counterfeit for true, our loss and shame be the 



82 CONDUCT OF 

greater when our stock comes to a severe scrutiny. 
One or two particulars may suggest hints of inqui- 
ry, and they do well to take those hints ; but it 
they turn them into conclusions, and make them 
presently general rules, they are forward indeed, 
but it is only to impose on themselves by propositions 
assumed for truths without sufficient warrant. To 
make such observations, is, as has been already re- 
marked, to make the head a magazine of materials, 
which can hardly be called knowledge, or at least, 
it is but like a collection of lumber not reduced to 
use or order ; and he that makes every thing an ob- 
servation, has the same useless plenty, and much 
more falsehood mixed with it. The extremes on 
both sides are to be avoided, and he will be able 
to give the best account of his studies who keeps 
his understanding in the right mean between them* 



26. Anticipation, 

Whether it be a love of that which brings the 
first light and information to their minds, and want 
of vigour and industry to inquire, or else that men 
content themselves with any appearance of know- 



THE UNDERSTANDING. S3 

ledge, right or wrong, which, when they have once 
got, they will hold fast; this is visible, that many men 
give themselves up to the first anticipations of their 
minds,"and are very tenacious of the opinions that first 
possess them ; they are often as fond of their first con- 
ceptions as of their first born, and will by no means 
recede from the judgement they have once made, 
or any conjecture or conceit which they have once 
entertained. This is a fault in the conduct of the 
understanding, since this firmness, or rather stiff- 
ness of the mind, is not from an adherence to truth, 
but a submission to prejudice. It is an unreason- 
able homage paid to prepossession, whereby we 
show a reverence not to (what we pretend to seek) 
truth, but what by hap-hazard we chance to light 
on, be it what it will. This is visibly a preposterous 
use of our faculties, and is a downright prostituting 
of the mind to resign it thus, and put it under the 
power of the first comer. This can never be allow- 
ed, or ought to be followed as a right way to know- 
ledge, till the understanding (whose business it is to 
conform itself to what it finds on the objects with- 
out) can by its own opiniatry change that, and 
make the unalterable nature of things comply with 
its own hasty determinations, which will never be. 
Whatever we fancy, things keep their course ; and 
f2 



S4 CONDUCT QF 

their habitudes, correspondencies, and relation^ 
keep the same to one another* 



27. Resignation* 

Contrary to these, but by a like dangerous excess 
on the other side, are those who always resign their 
judgement to the last man they heard or read. — 
Truth never sinks into these men's minds, nor gives 
any tincture to them, but cameleon-like, they take 
the colour of what is laid before them, and as soon 
lose and resign it to the next that happens to -come 
in their way. The order wherein opinions are pro- 
posed or received by us, is no rale of their rectitude, 
nor ought to be a cause of their preference. First 
or last in this case, is the effect of chance, and not 
the measure of truth or falsehood. This every one 
must confess, and therefore should, in the pursuit 
of truth, keep his mind free from the influence of 
any such accidents. A man may as reasonably 
draw cuts for his tenets, regulate his persuasion by 
the cast of a die, as take it up for its novelty, or re- 
tain it because it had his first assent, and he was 
never of another mind. Well-weighed reasons are 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 85 

to determine the judgement ; those the mind should 
be always ready to hearken and submit to, and by 
their testimony and suffrage entertain or reject any* 
tenet indifferently, whether it be a perfect stranger- 
m an old acquaintance. 



28. Tractice. 

^Though the faculties of the mind are improved by 
exercise, yet they must not be put to a stress be- 
yond their strength. Quid valeant humeri, quid, 
ferre recusent, must be made the measure of every- 
one's understanding, who has a desire not only to 
perform well, but to keep up the vigour of his fa- 
culties, and not to baulk his understanding by what 
is too hard for it. The mind by being engaged in 
a task beyond its strength, like the body, strained 
by lifting at a weight too heavy, has often its force 
broken, and thereby gets an unaptness or an aver- 
sion to any vigorous attempt ever after. A si new- 
cracked seldom recovers its former strength, or at 
least the tenderness of the sprain remains a good 
while after, and the memory of it longer, and leave* 
a lasting caution in the man not to put tbc part 
* 2 



$6 conduct or 

quickly again to any robust employment. So ii 
faico in the mind once jaded by an attempt above 
its power ; it either is disabled for the future, or " 
else checks at any vigorous undertaking ever after, 
at least is very hardly brought to exert its force 
again on any subject that requires thought and 
meditation. The understanding should be brought 
to the difficult and knotty parts of knowledge, that 
try the strength of thought ; and a full bent of the 
mind, by insensible degrees, and in such a gradual 
proceeding, nothing is too hard for it. Nor let it 
be objected, that such a slow progress will never 
reach the extent of some sciences. It is not to be 
imagined how far constancy will carry a man ; 
however, it is better walking slowly in a rugged 
way, than to break a leg and be a cripple. He 
that begins with the calf may carry the ox ; but 
he that will at first go to take up an ox, may so 
disable himself, as not to be able to lift a calf after 
that. When the mind by insensible degrees has 
brought itself to attention and close thinking, it 
will be able to cope with difficulties, and master 
them without any prejudice to itself, and then it 
may go on roundly ; every abstruse problem, every 
intricate question, will nut baffle, discourage, or 
break it. But though putting the mind unpre- 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 87 

pared upon an unusual stress, that may discourage 
or damp it for the future, ought to be avoided, yet 
this must not run it, by an over-great shyness of 
difficulties, into a lazy sauntering about ordinary 
and obvious things, that demand no thought or ap- 
plication ; this debases and enervates the under- 
standing, makes it weak and unfit for labour. — 
This is a sort of hovering about the surface of 
things, without any insight into them, or penetra- 
tion ; and when the mind has been once habi tuated 
to this lazy recumbency and satisfaction on the 
obvious surface of things, it is in danger to rest sa- 
tisfied there, and go no deeper, since it cannot do 
it without pains and digging. He that has for 
some time accustomed himself to take up with 
what easily offers itself at first view, has reason 
to fear he shall never reconcile himself to the fa- 
tigue of turning and tumbling of things in his mind, 
to discover their more retired and more valuable 
secrets. 

It is not strange that methods of learning, which 
scholars have been accustomed to in their beginning 
and entrance upon the sciences, should influence 
them all their lives, and be settled in their minds 
by an over-ruling reverence, especially if they be 
such as universal use has established. Learners 
*4 



88 CONDUCT OF 

must at first be believers, and their master's rules 
having been once made axioms to them, it is no 
wonder they should keep that dignity, and by the 
authority they have once got, mislead those who 
think it sufficient to excuse them, if they go out 
of their way in a well-beaten track* 



29. Words. 

I have copiously enough spoken of the abuse of 
words in another place, and therefore shall, upon 
this reflection that the sciences are full of them, 
w r arn those that would conduct their understand- 
ings right, not to take any term, howsoever autho- 
rised by the language of the schools, to stand for 
any thing till they have an idea of it. A word 
may be of frequent use and great credit with seve- 
ral authors, and be by them made use of, as if it 
stood for some real being ; but yet if he that reads 
cannot frame any distinct idea of that being, it is cer- 
tain to him a mere empty sound without a mean- 
ing, and he learns no more by all that is said of 
it, or attributed to it, than if it were affir 1 only 
ef that bare empty souid. They wh^ ^uld Jid- 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 8£ 

vance in knowledge, and not deceive and swell 
themselves with a little articulated air, should lay- 
down this as a fundamental rule, not to take words 
for things, nor suppose that names in books signify 
real entities in nature, till they can frame clear and 
distinct ideas of those entities. It will not perhaps be 
allowed, if I should set down substantial forms and 
intentional species, as such that may justly be sus- 
pected to be of this kind of insignificant terms ; 
but this I am sure, to one that can form no deter- 
mined ideas of what they stand for, they signify no- 
thing at all, and all that he thinks he knows about 
them is to him so much knowledge about nothing, 
and amounts at most but to a learned ignorance. 
It is not without all reason supposed, that there are 
many such empty terms to be found in some learned 
writers to which they had recourse to etch out their 
systems where their understandings could not fur- 
nish them with conceptions from things ; but yet I 
believe the supposing of some realities in nature, 
answering those and the like words, have much 
perplexed some, and quite misled others in the 
-study of nature. That which in any discourse 
signifies, I know not ivltat, should be considered, 
I knoiv not rc/icn. Where men have any concep- 
tions, they can, if they 7 are ever so abstruse or jab- 



£)0 CONDUCT OJ 

stracted, explain them, and the terms they use fo£ 
them ; for our conceptions being nothing but ideas, 
which are all made up of simple ones, if they cannot •* 
give us the ideas their words stand for, it is plain 
they have none. To what purpose can it be to 
hunt after his conceptions, who has none, or none 
distinct? He that knew not what he himself meant 
by a learned term, cannot make us know any thing 
by his use of it, let us beat our heads about it ever 
so long. Whether we are able to comprehend all 
the operations of nature, and the manners of them, 
it matters not to inquire ; but this is certain, that 
we can comprehend no more of them than we can 
directly conceive ; and, therefore, to obtrude terms 
where we have no distinct conceptions, as if they did 
contain, or rather concealed something, is but an 
artifice of learned vanity, to cover a defect in an 
hypothesis or our understandings. Words are not 
made to conceal, but to declare and show some- 
thing ; where they are, by those who pretend to in- 
struct, otherwise used, they conceal indeed some- 
thing ; but that which they conceal is nothing but 
the ignorance, error, or sophistry of the talker, for 
there is, in truth, nothing else under them. 



THE UNDERSTANDING. Q\ 



30. Wandering. 

That there is constant succession and flux of ideas 
in our minds, I have observed in the former part of 
this essay, and every one may take notice of it in 
himself. This, I suppose, may deserve some part of 
our care in the conduct of our understandings ; 
and I think it may be of great advantage, if we can 
by use get that power over our mine is, as to be able 
to direct that train of ideas, that so, since there will 
new ones perpetually come into our thoughts by a 
constant succession, we may be able by choice so to 
direct them, that none may come in view but such 
as are pertinent to our present inquiry, and in such 
order as may be most useful to the discovery we are 
upon ; or at least, if some foreign and unsought 
ideas will offer themselves, that yet we might be 
able to reject them, and keep them from taking off 
our minds from its present pursuit, and hinder them 
from running away with our thoughts quite from 
the subject in hand. This is not, I suspect, so easy 
to be done as perhaps may be imagined; and yet, 
for ought I know, this may be, if not the chief, yet 
one of the great differences that carry some men in 



%% CONDUCT OF 

their reasoning so far beyond others, where they 
seem to be naturally of equal parts. A proper and 
-effectual remedy for this wandering of thoughts I 
would be glad to find. He that shall propose such 
an one, would do great service to the studious and 
contemplative part of mankind, and perhaps help un- 
thinking men to become thinking. I must acknow- 
ledge, that hitherto I have discovered no other way 
to keep our thoughts close to their business, but 
the endeavouring as much as we can, and by fre- 
quent attention and application, getting the habit 
of attention and application. He that will observe 
children, will find, that even when they endeavour 
their utmost, they cannot keep their minds from 
straggling. The way to cure it, I am satisfied, is 
not angry chiding or beating, for that presently fills 
their heads with all the ideas that fear, dread, or 
-confusion can offer to them. To bring back gently 
their wandering thoughts, by leading them into the 
-path, and going before them in the train they 
should pursue, without any rebuke, or so much as 
taking notice (where it can be avoided) of their rov- 
ing, I suppose would sooner reconcile and inure 
them to attention, than all those rougher methods 
which more distract their thought, and, hindering 



THE UNDERSTANDING, <)3 

tlie application they would promote, introduce a 
contrary habit* 



31. Distinction. 

Distinction and division are (if I mistake not the 
import of the words) very different things, the one 
being the perception of a difference that nature has 
placed in things, the other our making a division 
where there is yet none ; at least, if I may be per- 
mitted to consider them in this sense, I think I may 
say of them, that one of them is the most necessary 
and conducive to true knowledge that can be ; the 
other, when too much made use of, serves only to 
puzzle and confound the understanding. To observe 
every the least difference that is in things, argues a 
quick and clear sight, and this keeps the under- 
standing steady and right in its way to knowledge. 
But thongh it be useful to discern every variety 
that is to be found in nature, yet it is not conve- 
nient to consider every difference that is in things, 
and divide them into distinct classes under every 
such difference. This will run us, if followed, into 
particulars (for every individual has something that 
differences it from another,) and we shall be able 



94t CONDUCT OB 

to establish no general truths, or else at least shall 
be apt to perplex the mind about them. The col- 
lection of several things into several classes, gives "* 
the mind more general and larger views ; but we 
must take care to unite them only in that, and so 
far as they do agree, for so far may they be united 
under the consideration ; for entity itself, that com- 
prehends all things, as general as it is, may afford 
us clear and rational conceptions. If we would 
weigh and keep in our minds what it is we are 
considering, that would best instruct us when we 
should or should not branch into farther distinc- 
tions, which are to be taken only from a due con- 
templation of things, to which there is nothing 
more opposite than the art of verbal distinctions, 
made at pleasure in learned and arbitrarily invent- 
ed terms, to be applied at a venture, without com- 
prehending or conveying any distinct notions, and 
so altogether fitted to artificial talk, or empty noise 
in dispute, without any clearing of difficulties, or 
advance in knowledge. Whatsoever subject we ex- 
amine and would get knowledge in, we should, I 
think, make as general and as large as it will bear ; 
nor can there be any danger of this, if the idea of it 
be settled and determined ; for if that be so, we shall 
easily distinguish it from any other idea, though 



THE UNDERSTANDING, 95 

comprehended under the same name ; for it is to 
fence against the entanglements of equivocal words, 
and the great art of sophistry which lies in them, 
that distinctions have been multiplied, and their use 
thought necessary. But had every distinct abstract 
idea a distinct known name, there would be little 
need of these multiplied scholastic distinctions, 
though there would be nevertheless as much need 
still of the mind's observing the differences that are 
in things, and discriminating them thereby one from 
another. It is not, therefore, the right way to 
knowledge, to hunt after and fill the head with 
abundance of artificial and scholastic distinctions, 
wherewith learned mens writings are often filled. — 
We sometimes find what they treat of so divided 
and subdivided, that the mind of the most attentive 
reader loses the sight of it, as it is more than pro- 
bable the writer himself did ; for in things crumbled 
into dust, it is in vain to affect or pretend order, or 
expect clearness. To avoid confusion by too few or 
too many divisions, is a great skill in thinking as well 
rating, which is but the copying our thoughts; 
but what are the boundaries of the mean between 
the two vicious excesses on both hands, I think is 
hard to set down in words. — Clear and distinct 
ideas is all that I yet know able to regulate it.-— 



S6 CONDUCT OF 

But as to verbal distinctions received and applied 
to common terms, i. e. equivocal words, they are 
more properly, I think, the business of criticisms* 
and dictionaries, than of real knowledge and philo- 
sophy, since they, for the most part, explain the 
meaning of words, and give us their several signifi- 
cations. The dexterous management of terms, and 
being able to fend and prove with them, I know 
has and does pass in the world for a great part of 
learning; but it is learning distinct from know- 
ledge ; for knowledge consists only in perceiving 
the habitudes and relations of ideas one to another, 
which is done without words ; the intervention of 
a sound helps nothing to it. And hence we see that 
there is least use of distinctions where there is most 
knowledge ; I mean in mathematics, where men 
have determined ideas with known names to them ; 
and so there being no room for equivocations, there 
is no need of distinctions* In arguing, the opponent 
uses as comprehensive and equivocal terms as he 
can, to involve his adversary in the doubtfulness of 
his expressions. — This is expected, and therefore 
the answerer on his side makes it his play to dis- 
tinguish as much as he can, and thinks he can 
never do it too much, nor can he indeed in that 
xvay, wherein victory may be had without truth 



THE UtfDERSTAXDIXG. 97 

and without knowledge. This seems to me to be 
the art of disputing. — Use your words as captiously 
as you can in your arguing on one side, and apply 
distinctions as much as you can on the othei side 
to every term, to nonplus your opponent ; so that 
in this sort of scholarship, there being no bounds set 
to distinguishing, some men have thought all acutc- 
ness to have lain in it ; and therefore in all they 
have read or thought on, their great business has 
been to amuse themselves with distinctions, and 
multiply to themselves divisions, at least, more than 
the nature of the thing required. There seems to 
me, as I said, to be no other rule for this,' but a 
due and right consideration of things as they are 
in themselves. He that has settled in his mind de- 
termined ideas, with names affixed to them, will be 
able both to discern their differences one from an- 
other, which is really distinguishing ; and, where 
the penury of words affords not terms answering 
every distinct idea, will be able to apply proper 
distinguishing terms to the comprehensive and 
equivocal names he is forced to make use of. This 
is all the need I know of distinguishing terms ; and 
in such verbal distinctions, each term of the dis- 
tinction, joined to that whose signincacion it dis- 
tinguishes, is but a distinct name for a distinct 



i)8 CONDUCT OF 

idea. Where they are so, and men have clear and 
distinct conceptions that answer their verbal dis- 
tinctions, they are right, and are pertinent as far 
as they serve to clear any thing in the subject un* 
der consideration ; and this is that which seems to 
me the proper and only measure of distinctions 
and divisions ; which he that will conduct his 
understanding right, must not look for in the acute*- 
ness of invention, nor the authority of writers, but 
will find only in the consideration of things them- 
selves, whether they are led into it by their own 
meditations, or the information of books. 

An aptness to jumble things together, wherein 
can be found any likeness, is a fault in the under- 
standing on the other side, which will not fail to 
mislead it, and by thus lumping of things, hinder 
the mind from distinct and accurate conceptions of 
them. 



32. SimiUes. 

To which let me here add another, near of kin to 
this, at least in name, and that is letting the mind, 
upon the suggestion of any new notion, run imme- 
diately after similics to make it the clearer to itself; 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 99 

which, though it may be a good way, and useful in 
the explaining our thoughts to others, yet it is by 
no means a right method to settle true notions of 
any thing in ourselves, because similies always fail 
in some part, and come short of that exactness 
which our conceptions should have to things, if we 
would think aright. This indeed makes men plau- 
sible talkers ; for those are always most acceptable 
in discourse who have the way to let their thoughts 
into other men s minds with the greatest ease and 
facility ; whether those thoughts are well formed 
and correspond with things, matters not ; few men 
care to be instructed but at an easy rate. They, 
who in their discourse strike the fancy, and take the 
hearers conceptions along with them as fast as their 
words flow, are the applauded talkers, and go for 
the only men of clear thoughts. Nothing contri- 
butes so much to this as similies, whereby men 
think they themselves undertsand better, because 
thev are the better understood. But it is one thin* 

o 

to think aright, and another thing to know the 
right way to lay our thoughts before others with 
advantage and clearness, be they right or wronor. — 
Well chosen similies, metaphors, and allegoric-, with 
method and order, do this the best of any thing, be- 
cause being taken from objects already known, and 
Q2 



100 conduct or 

familiar to the understanding, they arc conceived a? 
fast as spoken ; and the correspondence being con- 
cluded, the thing they are brought to explain and 
elucidate is thought to be understood too. Thus 
fancy passes for knowledge, and what is prettily said 
is mistaken for solid. I say not this to decry meta- 
phor, or with design to take away that ornament 
of speech ; my business here is not with rhetorici- 
ans and orators, but with philosophers and lovers 
of truth ; to whom I would beg leave to give this 
one rule whereby to try whether, in the application 
of their thoughts to any thing for the improvement 
of their knowledge, they do in truth comprehend 
the matter before them really such as it is in itself. 
The way to discover this is to observe, whether in 
the laying it before themselves or others, they make 
use only of borrowed representations and ideas fo- 
reign to the things which are applied to it by way 
of accommodation, as bearing some proportion or 
imagined likeness to the subject under consideration. 
Figured and metaphorical expressions do well to 
illustrate more abstruse and unfamiliar ideas which 
the mind is not yet thoroughly accustomed to ; but 
then they must be made use of to illustrate ideas 
that we already have, not to paint to us those which 
we yet have not. Such borrowed and allusive ideas 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 101 



may follow real and solid truth, to set it off when 
found, but must by no means be set in its place, 
jand taken for it. If all our search has yet n \ I 
no farther than simile or metaphor, we may 
( ourselves we rather fancy than know, and are not yet 
j'penetrated into the inside -<nd reality ot the thing, 
be it what it will, but content < lirselves with what 



our imaginations, not things themselves, furnish us 
with. 



S3. Assent. 

In the whole conduct of the understanding, there is 
nothing of more moment than to know when and 
where, and how far to give assent, and possibly there 
is nothing harder. It is very easily said, and no- 
body questions it, that giving and withholding our 
assent, and the degrees of it, should be regulated 
by the evidence which things carry with them ; and 
yet we see men are not the better for this rule ; some 
firmly embrace doctrines upon slight grounds^ 
some upon no grounds, and some contrary to ap- 
pearance. — Some admit of certainty, and are not 
to be moved in what they hold ; others waver in 
erery thing ; and there want not those that reject 
e3 






102 CONDUCT OF 

all as uncertain. What then shall a novice, an in- 
quirer, a stranger do in the case ? — I answer, use 
his eyes. There is a correspondence in things, an 
agreement and disagreement in ideas, discernible in 
very different degrees, and there are eyes in men to- 
see them if they please, only their eyes may be 
dimmed or dazzled, and the discerning sight in 
them impaired or lost. Interest and passion dazzles ; 
the custom of arguing on any side, even against our 
persuasions, dims the understanding, and makes it 
by degrees lose the faculty of discerning clearly be- 
tween truth and falsehood, and so of adhering to 
the right side. It is not safe to play with error, 
and dress it up to ourselves or others in the shape 
of truth. The mind by degrees loses its natural 
relish of real solid truth, is reconciled insensibly to 
any thing that can be dressed up into any faint ap- 
pearance of it; and if the fancy be allowed the place 
of judgement at first in sport, it afterwards comes 
by use to usurp it, and what is recommended by 
this flatterer (that studies but to please) is received 
for good. There are so many ways of fallacy, such 
arts of giving colours, appearances, and resemblan- 
ces by this court-dresser, the fancy, that he, who is 
not wary to admit nothing but truth itself, very 
careful not to make his mind subservient to any 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 103 

thing else, cannot but be caught. He that has a 
mind to believe has half assented already ; and he 
that by often arguing against his own sense, im- 
poses falsehoods on others, is not far from believing 
himself. This takes away the great distance there 
is betwixt truth and falsehood ; it brings them al- 
most together, and makes it no great odds, in things 
that approach so near, which you take ; and when 
things are brought to that pass, passion or interest, 
fyc. easily, and without being perceived, determine 
which shall be the right. 



34. Indifferency. 

I have said above, that we should keep a perfect 
indifferency for all opinions, not wish any of them 
true, or try to make them appear so ; but being in- 
different, receive and embrace them according as 
evidence, and that alone gives the attestation of 
truth. They that do thus, i. e. keep their mind 
indifferent to opinions, to be determined only by 
evidence, will always find the understanding has 
perception enough to distinguish between evidence 
Or no evidence, betwixt plain and doubtful ; and if 
G 4 



104 CONDUCT 0¥ 

they neither give nor refuse their assent but by that 
measure, they will be safe in the opinions they have, 
which being perhaps but few, this caution will have 
also this good in it, that it will put them upon con- 
sidering, and teach them the necessity of examining 
more than they do ; without which, the mind is 
hut a receptacle of inconsistencies, not the store- 
house of truths. They that do not keep up this 
indifferency in themselves for all but truth, not sup- 
posed, but evidenced in themselves, put coloured 
spectacles before their eyes, and look on things 
through false glasses, and then think themselves 
excused in following the false appearances which 
they themselves put upon them. I do not expect that 
by this way the assent should in every one be pro- 
portioned to the grounds and clearness wherewith 
every truth is capable to be made out, or that men 
should be perfectly kept from error ; that is more 
than human nature can by any means be advanced 
to. — -1 aim at no such unattainable privilege ; — 
I am only speaking of what they should do, who 
would deal fairly with their own minds, and make 
a right use of their faculties in the pursuit of truth ; 
We fail them a great deal more than they fail us. 
It is mismanagement more than want of abilities 
that men have reason to complain of, and which 



THE UNDEHSTANTDIttG. 105 

ihey actually do complain of, in those that differ 
from them. He that by an indifferency for all but 
truth, suffers not his assent to go faster than his 
evidence, nor beyond it, will learn to examine, and 
examine fairly instead of presuming, and nobody 
will be at a loss or in clanger, for want of embrac- 
ing those truths which are necessary in his station 
and circumstances. In any other way but this, all 
the world are born to orthodoxy ; they imbibe at 
first the allowed opinions of their country and par- 
ty, and so never questioning their truth, not one of 
an hundred ever examines ; they are applauded 
for presuming they are in the right. He that con- 
siders, is a foe to orthodoxy, because possibly he 
may deviate from some of the received doctrines 
there ; and thus men, without any industry or ac- 
quisition of their own, inherit local truths (for it is 
not the same every where), and are inured to assent 
without evidence. This influences farther than is 
thought ; for what one of an hundred of the zealous 
bigots in all parties ever examined the tenets he is 
so stiff in, or ever thought it his business or duty so 
to do? It is suspected of lukewarmness to suppose 
it necessary, and a tendency to apostacy to go about 
it ; and if a man can bring his mind once to be posi- 
tive and fierce for positions, whose evidence he has 



106 CONDUCT OF 

never once examined, and that in" matters of great- 
est concernment to him, what shall keep him from 
this short and easy way of being in the right, in 
cases of less moment? Thus we are taught to clothe 
our minds, as we do our bodies, after the fashion in 
vogue, and it is accounted fantastic alness, or some- 
thing worse, not to do so. This custom (which 
who dares oppose ?) makes the short-sighted bigots, 
and the warier sceptics, as far as it prevails ; and 
those that break from it are in danger of heresy ; 
for taking the whole world, how much of it doth 
truth and orthodoxy possess together ? though it is 
by the last alone (which has the good luck to be 
every where) that error and heresy are judged of; 
for argument and evidence signify nothing in the 
case, and excuse no where, but are sure to be borne 
down in all societies by the infallible orthodoxy of 
the place. Whether this be the way to truth and 
right assent, let the opinions that take place and 
prescribe in the several habitable parts of the earth, 
declare. I never saw any reason yet why truth 
might not be trusted to its own evidence.- — I am 
sure if that be not able to support it, there is no 
fence against error, and then truth and falsehood 
are but names that stand for the same things. — 
Evidence, therefore, is that by which alone every 



THTE UNDERSTANDING. 107 

man is (and should be") taught to regulate his assent, 
who is then, and then only, in the right way when 
he follows it. 

Men deficient in knowledge are usually in one of 
these three states ; either wholly ignorant, or as 
doubting oi some position they have either embrac- 
ed formerly, or at present are inclined to; or, last- 
ly, they do with assurance hold and profess with- 
out ever having examined, and being convinced by 
well-grounded argume nts. 

The first of tiie^e are in the best state of the three, 
by having their minds yet in their perfect freedom 
and indifferency, the likelier to pursue truth the 
better, having no bias yet clapped on to mislead 
them. 



35. Indifferency* 

For ignorance, with an indifferency for truth, is 
nearer to it than opinion with ungrounded inclina- 
tion, which is the great source of error ; and chey 
are more in danger to go out of the way, who are 
marching under the conduct of a guide, that it is 
an hundred to one will mislead them, than he that 
has not yet taken a step, and is likelier to be pre* 



108 CONDUCT OF 

vailed on to inquire after the right way. The last 
of the three sorts are in the worst condition of all ; 
for if a man can be persuaded and fully assured of 
any thing for a truth, without having examined 
what is there that he may not embrace for truth, 
and if he has given himself up to believe a lie, what 
means is there left to recover one who can be assur- 
ed without examining? To the other two, this I 
crave leave to say, that as he that is ignorant is in 
the best state of the two, so he should pursue truth 
in a method suitable to that state, i. e. by inquiring 
directly into the nature of the thing itself, without 
minding the opinions of others, or troubling himself 
with their questions or disputes about it, but to see 
what he himself can, sincerely searching after truth, 
find out. He that proceeds upon other principles 
in his inquiry into any sciences, though he be re- 
solved to examine them, and judge of them freely, 
does yet at least put himself on that side, and post 
himself in a party which he will not quit till he be 
beaten out ; by which the mind is insensibly en- 
gaged to make what defence it can, and so is una- 
wares biassed. I do not say but a man should em- 
brace some opinion when he has examined, else he 
examines to no purpose ; but the surest and safest 
way is to have no opinion at all till he has examined., 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 109 

and that without any the least regard to the opinions 
or systems of other men about it. For example, 
were it my business to understand physic, would 
not the safer and readier way be to consult nature 
herself, and intorm myself in the history of diseases 
and their cures, than, espousing the principles of 
the dogmatists, methodists, or chemists, engage in 
all the disputes concerning either of those systems, 
and suppose it to be true, till I have tried what 
they can say to beat me out of it ? Or, supposing 
that Hippocrates, or any other book, infallibly 
contains the whole art of physic, would not the 
direct way be to study, read, and consider that 
book, weigh and compare the parts of it to find the 
truth, rather than espouse the doctrines of any par* 
ty, who, though they acknowledge his authority, 
have already interpreted and wire-drawn all his 
text to their own sense, the tincture whereof when 
I have imbibed, I am more in danger to misunder- 
stand his true meaning, than if I had come to him 
with a mind unprepossessed by doctors and com- 
mentators of my sect, whose reasonings, interpreta- 
tion, and language which I have been used to, will 
of course make all chime that way, and make an- 
other, and perhaps the genuine meaning of the au- 
thor seem harsh, strained and uncouth to me? — 



110 CONDUCT OF 

For words having naturally none of their own, car- 
ry that signification to the hearer, that he is used 
to put upon them, whatever be the sense of him 
that uses them. This, I think, is visibly so ; and 
if it be, he that begins to have any doubt of any of 
his tenets, which he received without examination, 
ought, as much as he can, to put himself wholly 
into this state of ignorance, in reference to that 
question, and throwing wholly by all his former 
notions, and the opinions of others, examine with a 
perfect indiiierency the question in its source, with- 
out any inclination to either side, or any regard to 
his cr others unexamined opinions. This, I own, 
is no easy thing to do ; but 1 am not inquiring the 
easy way to opinion, but the right way to truth,, 
which they must follow who will deal fairly with 
their own understandings and their own souls. 



3o. Question. 

The indiflerency that I here propose, will also en- 
able them to state the question right which they are 
in doubt about, without which they can never come 
to a fair and clear decision of it. 



THE UNDERSTANDING. Ill 



37- Perseverance, 

Another fruit from this indifTerency, and the Con- 
sidering things in themselves abstract from our own 
opinions and other men's notions and discourses 
on them, will be, that each man will pursue his 
thoughts in that method which will be most a^rce- 
able to the nature 1 of the thing, and to his appre- 
hension of what it suggests to him ; in which he 
ought to proceed with regularity and constancy, 
until he come to a well grounded resolution where- 
in he may acquiesce. If it be objected that this 
will require every man to be a scholar, and quit 
all his other business, and betake himself wholly to 
study, I answer, I propose no more to any one than 
he has time for. Some men's state and condition 
requires no great extent of knowledge, the neces- 
sary provision for life swallows the greatest part 
of their time ; but one man's want of leisure is 
no excuse for the oscitancy and ignorance of those 
who have time to spare ; and every one has 
enough to get as much knowledge as is required 
and expected of him ; and he that does not that, 
is in love with ignorance, and is accountable for it. 






112 CONDUCT OF 



38. Presumption. 

The variety of distempers in men's minds is as great 
as of those in their bodies ; some are epidemic, 
few escape them, and every one too, if he would 
look into himself, would find some defect of his 
particular genius. There is scarce any one without 
some idiosyncrasy that he suffers by. This man 
presumes upon his parts, that they will not fail 
him at time of need, and so thinks it superfluous 
labour to make any provision beforehand. His un- ] 
derstanding is to him like Fortunatus's purse, 
which is always to furnish him without ever putting 
any thing into it before-hand ; and so he sits still 
satisfied, without endeavouring to store his under- 
standing with knowledge. It is the spontaneous 
product of the country, and what need of labour 
in tillage? Such men may spread their ne*' 
riches before the ignorant, but they were best not 
come to stress and trial with the skilful. We are 
born ignorant of every thing. The superfices of 
things that surround them, make impressions on 
the negligent, but nobody penetrates into the in- 
side without labour, attention and industry. Stones 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 118 

and timber grow of themselves, but yet there is no 
uniform pile with symmetry and convenience to 
lodge in, without toil and pains. God has made 
the intellectual world harmonious and beautiful 
without us ; but it will never come into our heads 
nil at once, we must bring it home piece-meal, and 
there set it up by our own industry, or else we shall 
have nothing but darkness and a chaos within, 
whatever order and light there be in things without 
us. 



59. Despondency. 

On the other side, there are others that depress 
iheir own minds, despond at the first difficulty, and 
conclude that the getting an insight in any of the 
iciences, or making any progress in knowledge far- 
ther than serves their ordinary business, is above 
capacities. These sit still, because they think 
they have not legs to go, as the others I last men- 
tioned do, because they think they have wings to 
fly, and can soar on high when they please. To 
these latter one may for answer apply the proverb, 
use legs and h(ive.jfg$. Nobody knows what strength 
of parts he ha&ilm he has tried them. And of the 

H 



114 CONDUCT OF 

understanding one may most truly say, that its 
force is greater generally than it thinks, till it is put 
to it. Viresque acquirit eando. 

And therefore the proper remedy here is but to 
set the mind to work, and apply the thoughts vigor- 
ously to the business ; for it holds in the struggles 
of the mind as in those of war, Dum putant se vin- 
eere, vicere. A persuasion that we shall overcome 
any difficulties that we meet with in the sciences, 
seldom fails to carry us through them. Nobody 
knows the strength of his mind, and the force of 
steady and regular application, till he has tried. — 
This is certain, he that sets out upon weak legs, will 
not only go farther, but grow stronger too, than 
one, who, with a vigorous constitution, and firm 
limbs, only sits still. 

Something of kin to this, men may observe in 
themselves, when the mind frights itself (as it often 
does) with any thing reflected on in gross, aud tran- 
siently viewed confusedly, and at a distance. Things 
thus offered to the mind, carry the show of nothing 
but difficulty in them, and are thought to be wrap- 
ped up in impenetrable obscurity. Tut the truth 
is, these are nothing but spectres that the under- 
standing raises to itself, to flatter its own laziness. — 
It sees nulling distinctly in things remote, and h\ 



THE UNDERSTANDING. tt5 

a huddle, and therefore concludes too faintly, that 
there is nothing more clear to be discovered in 
them. It is but to approach nearer, and that mist 
of our own raising that enveloped them will re- 
move ; and those that in that mist appeared hideous 
giants not to be grappled with, will be found to be of 
the ordinary and natural size and shape. Things, 
that in a remote and confused view seem very ob- 
scure, must be approached by gentle and regular 
steps, and what is most visible, easy, and obvious in 
them, first considered. Reduce them into their dis- 
tinct parts, and then in their due order bring all that 
should be known concerning every one of these 
parts into plain and simple questions ; and then 
what was thought obscure, perplexed, and too hard 
for our weak parts, will lay itself open to the un- 
derstanding in a fair view, and let the mind into 
that which before it was awed with, and kept at a 
distance from, as wholly mysterious. I appeal to 
my reader's experience, whether this has never hap- 
pened to him, especially when, busy on one thing, 
he has occasionally reflected on another. I ask him, 

her he has never thus been scared with a sud- 
d pinion of mighty difficulties, which yet have 

Led, when he has seriously and methodically 
applied himself to the consideration of this seeming 
h 2 



Il6 CONDUCT OF 

terrible subject; and there has been no other mat- 
ter of astonishment left, but that he amused him- 
self with so discouraging a prospect of his own 
raising, about a matter, which in the handling was 
found to have nothing in it more strange or intricate 
than several other things which he had long since 
and with ease mastered. This experience would 
teach us how to deal with such bugbears another 
time, which should rather serve to excite our 
vigour, than enervate our industry. — The surest 
way for a learner in this, as in ail other cases, is not 
to advance by jumps and large strides ; let that 
which he sets himself to learn next be indeed the 
next, Le. as nearly conjoined with what he knows 
already as is possible ; let it be distinct, but not re- 
mote from it ; let it be new, and what he did not 
know before, that the understanding may advance ; 
but let it be as little at once as may be, that its ad- 
vances may be clear and sure. All the ground 
that it gets this way it will hold. This distinct 
gradual growth in knowledge is firm and sure ; it 
carries its own light with it in every step of its pro- 
gression, in an easy and orderly train, than which 
there is nothing of more use to the understanding. 
And though this perhaps may seem a very slow and 
lingering way to knowledge, yet I dare confidently 



THE ITNDEltSTANDIXG. 1 1 7 

affirm, that whoever will try it in himself, or any- 
one he will teach, shall find the advances greater 
in this method, than they would in the same space 
of time have been in any other he could have taken. 
The greatest part of true knowledge lies in a dis- 
tinct perception of things in themselves distinct. — 
And some men give more clear light and know- 
ledge by the bare distinct stating cf a question, than 
others by talking of it in gross whole hours together. 
In this, they who so state a question, do no more 
but separate and disentangle the parts of it one from 
another, and lay them, when so disentangled, in 
their due order. This often, without any more ado, 
resolves the doubt, and shows the mind where the 
truth lies. The agreement or disagreement of the 
ideas in question, when they are once separated 
and distinctly considered, is, in many cases, pre- 
sently perceived, and thereby clear and lasting 
knowledge gained ; whereas, things in gross taken 
up together, and so lying together in confusion, 
can produce in the mind but a confused, which in 
effect i i no knowledge, or at least when it comes to 
be examined and made use of, will prove little bet- 
ter than none. I therefore take the liberty to re- 
peat here again what I have said bewhere, that in 
learning any thing, as little should be proposed to 
h3 



ilS conduct or 

the mind at once as is possible, and that being un- 
derstood and fully mastered, to proceed to the next 
adjoining part, yet unknown, simple, unperplexed 
proposition, belonging to the matter in hand, and 
tending to the clearing what is principally designed. 



40. Analogy, 

Analogy is of great use to the mind in many 
cases, especially in natural philosophy ; and that 
part of it chiefly, which consists in happy and suc- 
cessful experiments. But here we must take care 
that we keep ourselves within that wherein the ana- 
logy consists. — For example, the acid oil of vitriol 
is found to be good in such a case, therefore the 
spirit of nitre or vinegar may be used in the like 
case. If the good effect of it be owing; wholly to 
the acidity of it, the trial may be justified ; but 
if there be something else besides the acidity in the 
oil of vitriol, which produces the good we desire in 
the case, we mistake that for analogy which is not, 
and suffer our understanding to be misguided by a 
wrong supposition of analogy, where there is none. 



THE tTNDlttSTANDlNG. lift 



41. Association. 

Though I have in the second book of my Essay 
concerning Human Understanding, treated of the 
association of ideas, yet having done it there histo- 
rically, as giving a view of the understanding in this 
as well as its several other ways of operating, rather 
than designing there to inquire into the remedies 
that ought to be applied to it, it will, under this lat- 
ter consideration, afford other matter of thought to 
those who have a mind to instruct themselves tho- 
roughly in the right way of conducting their under- 
lings ; and that the rather, because this, if I mis- 
take n< >t, is as frequent a cause of mistake and error 
in us, as perhaps ?ny thing" else that can be named, 
and is a iisease of the mind as hard to be cured as 
any ; it bein^ a very hard thing to convince any 
one that things are not so, and naturally so, as they 
constantly appear to him. 

By this one easy and unheeded miscarriage of 
the understanding, sandy and loose foundations be- 
come infallible principles, and will not suffer them- 
selves to be touched or questioned.— Such unna- 
tural connections become by custom as natural to 
h4 



150 CONDUCT OF 

the mind as sun and light. — Fire and warmth go 
together, and so seem to carry with them as natu- 
ral an evidence as self-evident truths themselves. — 
And where then shall one, with hopes of success, 
begin the cure ? Many men firmly embrace false- 
hood for truth, not only because they never thought 
otherwise, but also, because thus blinded as they 
have been from the beginning, they never could 
think otherwise ; at least without a vigour of mind 
able to contest the empire of habit, and look into 
its own principles ; a freedom which few men have 
the notion of in themselves, and fewer are allowed 
the practice of by others ; it being the great art and 
business of the teachers and guides in most sects, 
to suppress, as much as they can, this fundamen- 
tal duty which every man owes himself, and is the 
first steady step towards right and truth in the 
whole train of his actions and opinions. This 
would give one reason to suspect, that such teach- 
ers are conscious to themselves of the falsehood or 
weakness of the tenets they profess, since they will 
not suffer the grounds whereon they are built to 
be examined ; whereas those who seek truth only, 
and desire to own and propagate nothing else, free- 
ly expose their principles to the test, are pleased to 
have them examined, give men leave to reject them 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 121 

if they can ; and if there be any thing weak and 
unsound in them, are willing to have it detected, 
that they themselves, as well as others, may not 
lay any stress upon any received proposition, be- 
yond what the evidence oi its truth will warrant 
and allow. 

There is, I know, a great fault among all sorts 
of people, of principhng their children ana scho- 
lars ; which at last, when looked into, amounts to 
no more but making them imbibe their teacher's 
notions and tenets, by an implicit faith, and firmly 
to adhere to them, whether time or false. What 
colours may be given to this, or of what use it may 
be when practised upon the vulgar, destined to la- 
bour, and given up to the service of their bellies, I 
Will not here inquire ; but as to the ingenious part of 
mankind, whose condition allows them leisure and 
letters, and inquiry after truth, I can see no other 
right way of principling them, but to feake heed, as 
much as may be, that in their tender years, ideas 
that have no natural cohesion come not to bo unit- 
ed in their beads, and that this rule be often in- 
culcated to them, to be daeir guide in the whole 
course of their lives and studies, viz, that they 
never suffer any ideas to be joined in their under- 
standings, in any other or stronger combination 



I2£ CONDUCT OF 

than what their own nature and correspondence 
give them ; and that they often examine those that 
they find linked together in their minds, whether 
this association of ideas be from the visible agree- 
ment that is in the ideas themselves, or from the 
habitual and prevailing custom of the mind joining 
them thus together in thinking. 

This is for caution against this evil, before it be 
thoroughly riveted by custom in the understand- 
ing ; but he that would cure it when habit has 
established it, must nicely observe the very quick 
and almost imperceptible motions of the mind in its 
habitual actions. What I have said in another 
place about the change of the ideas of sense into 
those of judgement, may be proof of this. Let any 
one not skilled in painting be told, when he sees 
bottles and tobacco-pipes, and other things so paint- 
ed, as they are in some places shown, that he does 
not see protuberances, and you will not convince 
him but by the touch. — He will not believe that, by 
an instantaneous legerdemain of his own thoughts, 
one idea is substituted for the other. How frequent 
instances may one meet with of this in the arguings 
o£ the learned, who not seldom in two ideas that 
they have been accustomed to join in their minds, 
substitute one for the other, and I am apt to think, 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 12$ 

often without perceiving it themselves ? This, 
whilst they are under the deceit of it, makes them 
incapable of conviction, and they applaud them- 
selves as zealous champions for truth, when indeed 
they are contending for error ; and the confusion of 
two different ideas, which a customary connection 
of them in their minds hath made to them almost 
one, fills their head with false views, and their rea- 
sonings with false consequences. 



42. Fallacies. 

Right understanding consists in the discovery and 
adherence to truth, and that in the perception of 
the visible or probable agreement or disagreement 
of ideas, as they are affirmed and denied one of 
another. — From whence it is evident, that the right 
use and conduct of the understanding, whose busi- 
ness is purely truth and nothing else, is, that the 
mind should be kept in a perfect indiffereney, 
not inclining to either side, any farther than evi- 
dence settles it by knowledge, or the over- balance 
of probability gives it the turn of assent and belief; 
but yet it is very hard to meet with anj discourse, 



124 CONDUCT or 

wherein one may not perceive the author not only 
maintain (for that is reasonable and fit), but inclin- 
ed and biassed to one side of the question, with 
marks of a desire that that should be true. If it be 
asked me, how authors who have such a bias, and 
lean to it, may be discovered ? I answer, by obser- 
ving how in their writings or arguings they are of- 
ten led by their inclinations to change the ideas 
of the question, either by changing the terms, or by 
adding and joining others to them, whereby the 
ideas under consideration are so varied, as to be 
more serviceable to their purpose, and to be there- 
by brought to an easier and nearer agreement, or 
more visible and remoter disagreement one with 
another. This is plain and direct sophistry ; but 
I am far from thinking, that wherever it is found, 
it is made use of with design to deceive and mis- 
lead the readers. It is visible that men's pre- 
judicies and inclinations by this way impose often 
upon themselves; and their affection for truth, un- 
der their prepossession in favour of one side, is the 
very thing that leads them from it. Inclination 
su&aests and slides into their discourse favourable 
terms, which introduce iV.vcuraL^e ideas; till at 
las? by this means that is concluded clear a,nd evi- 
dent, thus dressed up, which, taken in its native 



THE UNDERSTANDING. ]$3 

state, by making use of none but the precise de- 
termined ideas, would find no admittance at all. 
The putting these glosses on what they affirm, 
these, as they are thought, handsome, easy, and 
graceful explications of what they are discoursing 
on, is so much the character of what is called and 
esteemed writing well, that it is very hard to think 
that authors will ever be persuaded to leave what 
serves so well to propagate their opinions, and pro- 
cure themselves credit in the world, for a more je- 
june and dry way of writing, by keeping to the 
same terms precisely annexed to the same ideas, a 
sour and blunt stiffness, tolerable in mathematici- 
ans only, who force their way, and make truth pre- 
vail by irresistible demonstration. 

But yet if authors cannot be prevailed with to 
quit the looser, though more insinuating ways of 
writing, if they will not think fit to keep close to 
truth and instruction by unvaried terms, and plain 
unsophisticated arguments, yet it concerns readers 
not to be imposed on by fallacies, and the prevail- 
ing ways of insinuation. To do this, the surest 
and most effectual remedy, is to fix in the mind 
the clear and distinct ideas of the question stripped 
of words; and so likewise in the train of argumen- 
tation, to take up the author's ideas, neglecting his 



126 CONDUCT OT 

words, observing how they connect or separate those 
in the question. He that does this will be able to 
cast off all that is superfluous ; he will see what is 
pertinent, what coherent, what is direct to, what 
slides by, the question. This will readily show 
him all the foreign ideas in the discourse, and 
where they were brought in ; and though they per- 
haps dazzle J the writer, yet he will perceive that 
they gave no light nor strength to his reasonings. 

This, though it be the shortest and easiest way 
of reading books with profit, and keeping one's self 
from being misled by great names or plausible dis- 
courses, yet it being hard and tedious to those who 
have not accustomed themselves to it, it is not to 
be expected that every one (amongst those few who 
really pursue truth) should this way guard his un- 
derstanding from bein^ imposed on by the wilful, 
or at least undesigned sophistry, which creeps into 
most of the books of argument. They that write 
against their conviction, or that, next to them, are 
resolved to maintain the tenets of a party they are 
engaged in, cannot be supposed to reject any arms 
that may help to d* fend their cause, and then ore 
such should b read with the gr sat< st caution ; :ad 
they who write for opinions they ar< sine r< ly per- 
suaded of, and believe to l>q true,, think they may 



THE UNDEllSTANDINO. \2f 

so far allow themselves to indulge their laudable 
affection to truth, as to permit their esteem of it to 
give it the best colours, and set it off with the best 
expressions and dress they can, thereby to gain it the 
easiest entrance into the minds of their readers, 
and fix it deepest there. 

One of those being the state of mind we may 
justly suppose most writers to be in, it is fit their 
readers, who apply to them for instruction, should 
not lay by that caution which becomes a sincere 
pursuit of truth, and should make them always 
watchful against whatever might conceal or mis- 
represent it. If they have not the skill of repre- 
senting to themselves the author's sense, by pure 
ideas separated from sounds, and thereby divested 
of the false lights and deceitful ornaments of speech, 
this yet they should do, they should keep the pre- 
cise question steadily in their minds, carry it along 
with them through the whole discourse, and suffer 
not the least alteration in the terms, either by ad- 
dition, subtraction, or substituting any other, — 
This every one can do who has a mind to it ; and 
he that has not a mind to it, it is plain makes his 
understanding on ] y the warehouse of other men's 
lumber ; I mean false and unconcluding reasoning, 
rather than a repository of trutn for his own use, 



128 CONDUCT 01* 

^hich will prove substantial, and stand him ia 
•tead, when he has occasion for it. And whether 
•uch an one deals fairly by his own mind, and con- 
ducts his own understanding right, I leave to his 
own understanding to judge. 



43. Fundamental Verities* 

The mind of man being very narrow, and so slow 
in making acquaintance with things, and taking in 
new truths, that no one man is capable, in a much 
longer life than ours, to know all truths ; it be- 
comes our prudence, in our search after knowledge, 
to employ our thoughts about fundamental and 
material questions, carefully avoiding those that 
are trifling, and not suffering ourselves to be divert- 
ed from our main even purpose, by those that are 
merely incidental. How much of many young 
men's time is thrown away in purely logical inqui- 
ries, I need not mention. This is no better than 
if a man, who was to be a painter, should spend 
all his cimc in examining the threads of the several 
cloths he is to paint upon, and counting the hairs, 
of each pencil and brush he intends to use in the 



THE ttNDEUSTANDIXG. 



re$ 



laying on of his colours. Nay, it is much worse than 
for a young painter to spend his apprenticeship in 
such useless niceties ; for he, at the end of all his 
pains to no purpose, finds that it is not painting, 
nor any help to it, and so is really to no purpose. — 
Whereas men designed for scholars have often their 
heads so filled and warmed with disputes on logical 
questions, that they take those airy useless notions 
for real and substantial knowledge, and think their 
understandings so well furnished with science, that 
they ncea not look any farther into the nature of 
things, or descend into the mechanical drudgery of 
experiment and inquiry, This is so obvious a mis- 
management of the understanding, and that in the 
professed way to knowledge, that it could not be 
passed by ; to which might be joined abundance of 
questions, and the way of handling of them in the 
scaools. What faults in particular of this kind, 
every man is, or may be guilty of, would be infinite 
to- enumerate; it suffices to have shown, that su- 
perficial and slight discoveries and observations 
that contain nothing ;i moment in themselves, nor 
serve as. clues to load us into farther knowledge, 
fcfrould not thought worth our searching after. 

There are fundamental truths that lie at the bot- 
tom, the basis upon which a great many others res*, 
i 



!30 CONDUCT QF 

and in which they have their consistency. These 
are teeming truths, rich in store, with which they 
furnish the mind, and like the lights of heaven are 
not only beautiful and entertaining in themselves, 
but give light and evidence to other things, that 
without them could not be seen or known. Such 
is that admirable discovery of Mr Newton, that 
all bodies gravitate to one another, which may be 
counted as the basis of natural philosophy ; which 
of what use it is to the understanding of the great 
frame of our solar system, he has to the astonish- 
ment of the learned world shown, and how much 
farther it would guide us in other things, if rightly 
pursued, is not yet known. Our Saviour's great 
rule, that we should love our neighbour as ourselves, is 
such a fundamental truth for the regulating human 
society, that, I think, by that alone one might with- 
out difficulty determine all the cases and doubts 
in social morality. These, and such as these, are 
the truths we should endeavour to find out, and 
store our minds with ; which leads me to another 
thing in the conduct of the understanding that is 
no less necessary, viz,*- 



/ 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 13 I 



44. Bottoming. 

To accustom ourselves in any question proposed, 
to examine and find out upon what it bottoms. — 
Most of the difficulties that come in our way, when 
well considered and traced, lead us to some propo- 
sition, which, known to be true, clears the doubt,- 
and gives an easy solution of the question, whilst 
topical and superficial arguments, of which there 
is store to be found on both sides, filling the head 
with variety of thoughts, and the mouth with copi- 
ous discourse, serve only to amuse the understand- 
ing, and entertain company, without coming to tha 
bottom of the question, the only place of rest and 
stability for an inquisitive mind, whose tendency 
is only to truth and knowledge. 

For example, if it be demanded, whether the 
Grand Seignior can Lawfully take what he will 
from any of his people? This question cannot bo 
resolved without coming to a certainty, whether all 
men are naturally equal ; for upon that it turns, 
and that truth well settled in the understanding, 
and carried in the mind through the various de- 
bates concerning the various rights of men in so- 
i 2 



132 CONDUCT OF 

cicty, will go a great way in putting an end to them, 
and showing on which side the truth is. 



45. Transferring of Thoughts, 

There is scarce any thing more for the improve- 
ment of knowledge, for the ease of life, and the dis- 
patch of business, than for a man to be able to dis- 
pose of his own thoughts ; and there is scarce any 
thing harder in the whole conduct of the under- 
standing than to get a full mastery over it. The 
mind, in a waking man, has always some object 
that it applies itself to ; which, when we are lazy 
or unconcerned, we can easily change, and at plea- 
sure transfer our thoughts to another, and from 
thence to a third, which has no relation to either 
of the former. Hence men forwardly conclude, 
and frequently say, nothing is so free as thought ; 
and it were well it were so ; but the contrary will 
be found true in several instances ; and there are 
many cases wherein there is nothing more resty and 
ungovernable than our thoughts ; they will not be 
directed what objects to pursue, nor be taken oflf 
from those they have once fixed on, but run away 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 133 

with a man in pursuit of those ideas they have in 
view, let him do what he can. 

I will not here mention again what I have 
above taken notice of, how hard it is to get the 
mind, narrowed by a custom of thirty or forty 
years star. ding to a scanty collection of obvious 
and common ideas, to enlarge itself to a more co- 
pious stock, and grow into an acquaintance with 
th'- e tnat would afford more abundant matter of 
useful contemplation ; it is not of this I am here 
speaking. — The inconveniency I would here repre- 
sent and find a remedy for, is the difficulty there is 
sometimes to transfer our minds from one subject 
to another, in cases where the ideas are equally fa- 
miliar to us. 

Matters that are recommended to our thoughts- 
by any of our passions, take possession of our minds, 
with a kind of authority, and will not be kept out 
or dislodged ; but as if the passion that rules were., 
for the time the sheriff of the place, and came with 
all the posse, the understanding is seized and taken 
with the object it introduces, as if it had a legal 
right to be alone considered there. There is scarce 
an) body, i think, of so calm a temper, who hath 
nol some Lime found this tyranny on his under- 
standing, and suffered under the inconvenience ol 
lo 



134 conduct or 

it. Who is there almost, whose mind at some 
time or other, love or anger, fear or grief, has not 
so fastened to some clog, that it could not turn it- 
self to any other object ? I call it a clog, for it 
hangs upon the mind so as to hinder its vigour and 
activity in the pursuit of other contemplations, and 
advances itself little or not at all in the knowledge 
of the thing which it so closely hugs and constant- 
ly pores on. Men thus possessed, are sometimes 
as if they were so in the worse sense, and lay un- 
der the power of an enchantment. They see not 
what passes before their eyes ; hear not the audible 
discourse of the company ; and when by any strong 
application to them they are roused a little, they 
are like men brought to themselves from some re- 
mote region ; whereas, in truth, they come no far- 
ther than their secret cabinet within, where they 
have been wholly taken up with the puppet, which 
is for that time appointed for their entertainment. 
The shame that such dumps cause to well-bred peo- 
ple, when it carries them away from the company 
where they should bear a part in the conversation, is 
a sufficient argument, that it is a fault in the con- 
duct of our understanding not to have that power 
over it as to make use of it to those purposes, and on 
tfiOKc occasions wherein we have irecd of its assis- 



THE TJXDEHSTANDIXG. 135 

tance. The mind should be always free and ready 
to turn itself to the variety of objects that occur, 
and allow them as much consideration as shall for 
that time be thought fit. To be engrossed so by 
one object, as not to be prevailed on to leave it for 
another that we judge fitter for our contemplation, 
is to make it of no use to us. Did this state of 
mind remain always so, every one would, without 
scruple, give it the name of perfect madness ; and 
whilst it does last, at whatever intervals it returns, 
■such a rotation of thoughts about the same object 
no more carries us forwards towards the attainment 
of knowledge, than getting upon a mill-horse, 
whilst he jogs on in his circular track, would car- 
ry a man a journey. 

I grant something must be allowed to legitimate 
passions, and to natural inclinations. Every man, 
besides occasional affections, has beloved studies, 
and those the mind will more closely stick to ; but 
yet it is best that it should be always at liberty, 
and under the free disposal of the man, to act how, 
and upon what he directs. This we should endeav- 
our to obtain, unless we would be content with such 
a flaw in our understandings, that sometimes we. 
should be as it were without it ; for it is very little 
better than so in cases where we cannot make use* 
*4 



IStf CONDUCT or 

of it to those purposes we would, and which stand 
in present need of it. 

But before fit remedies can be thought on : for 
this disease, we must know the several causes of it, 
stnd thereby regulate the cure, if we will hope to 
labour with success. 

One we have already instanced in, whereof all 
men that reflect have so general a knowledge, and 
so often an experience in themselves, that nobody 
doubts of it. A prevailing passion so pins down 
our thoughts to the object and concern of it, that 
a man passionately in love cannot bring himself to 
think of his ordinary affairs, or a kind mother, 
drooping under the loss of a child, is not able to 
bear a part as she was wont in the discourse of the 
company or conversation of her friends. 

But though passion be the most obvious and 
general, yet it is not the only cause that binds up 
the understanding, and confines it for the time to 
one object, from which it will not be taken off. 

Besides this, we may often find that the under- 
standing, when it has a while employed itself upon 
a subject which either chance, or some slight acci- 
-dent offered to it, without the interest or recom- 
mendation of any passion, works itself into a 
v/armth, and by degrees gets into a career, where- 



THE USDERSTAXDIXG. 157 

in, like a bowl clown a hill, it increases its motion 
by going, and will not be stopped or diverted, 
though, when the heat is over, it sees all this 
earnest application was about a trifle not worth a 
thought, and all the pains employed about it lost 
labour. 

There is a third sort, if 1 mistake not, yet lower 
than this ; it is a sort of childishness, if I may so 
say, of the understanding, wherein, during the fit, 
it plays with, and dandles some insignificant pup- 
pet to no end, nor with any design at all, and yet 
cannot easily be got off from it. Thus some tri- 
vial sentence, or a scrap of poetry, will sometimes 
get into men's heads, and make such a chiming 
there, that there is no stilling of it; no peace to 
be obtained, nor attention to any thing else, but 
this impertinent guest will take up the mind and 
possess the thoughts, in spite of all endeavours to 
get rid of it. Whether every one hath experimen- 
ted in themselves this troublesome intrusion of 
some frisking ideas which thus importune the un- 
derstanding, and hinder it from being better em- 
ployed, I know not ; but persons of very good 
parts, and those more than one, I have heard speak 
and complain of it themselves. The reason 1 have 
to make tins doubt, is from what I have known in 



£3$ CONDUCT OF 

a case something of kin to this, though much odd- 
er, and that is of a sort of visions that some peo- 
ple have lying quiet, but perfectly awake, in the 
dark, or with their eyes shut. It is a great variety 
of faces, most commonly very odd ones, that ap- 
pear to them in a train one after another ; so that 
having had just the sight of one, it immediately 
passes away to give place to another, that the same 
instant succeeds, and has as quick an exit as its 
leader, and so they march on in a constant suc- 
cession ; nor can any one of them by any endeav- 
our be stopped or retained beyond the instant of 
its appearance, but is thrust out by its follower, 
which will have its turn. Concerning this fantas- 
tical phenomenon, I have talked with several peo- 
ple, whereof some have been perfectly acquainted 
with it, and others have been so wholly strangers 
to it> that they could hardly be brought to con- 
ceive or believe it. I knew a lady of excellent 
parts who had got past thirty, without having ever 
had the least notice of any such thing; she was so 
great a stranger to it, that when she heard me and 
another talking of it, could scarce forbear think- 
ing we bantered her ; but some time after drinking 
a large dose of dilute tea (as she was ordered by 
a physician) going to bed, she told us at next 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 139 

snooting, that she had now experimented what our 
discourse had much ado to persuade her of. She 
had seen a great variety of faces in a long train> 
succeeding one another, as we had described ; they 
were all strangers and intruders, such as she had 
no acquaintance with before, nor sought after then, 
and as they came of themselves, they went too ; 
none of them stayed a moment, nor could be de- 
tained by all the endeavours she could use, but went 
on in their solemn procession, just appeared and 
then vanished. This odd phenomenon seems to 
have a mechanical cause, and to depend upon the 
matter and motion of the blood or animal spirits. 

When the fancy is bound by passion, I know no 
way to set the mind free, and at liberty to prose- 
cute what thoughts the man would make choice 
of, but to allay the present passion, or counterba- 
lance it with another, which is an art to be got by 
study, and acquaintance with the passions. 

Those who find themselves apt to be carried 
away with the spontaneous current of their own 
thoughts, not excited by any passion or interest, 
must be very wary and careful in all the instances 
of it to stop it, and never humour their minds in 
being thus triflingly busy. Men know the value 
^f their corporeal liberty, curd therefore suffer not 



140 Conduct or 

willingly fetters and chains to be put upon them. T® 
have the mind captivated, is, for the time, certainly 
the greater evil of the two, and deserves our utmost 
care and endeavours to preserve the freedom of our 
better part And in this case our pains will not 
be lost ; and striving and struggling will prevail, if 
we constantly, in all such occasions, make use of 
it. We must never indulge these trivial attentions 
of thought ; as soon as we find the mind makes it- 
self a business of nothing, we should immediately 
disturb and check it, introduce new and more se- 
rious considerations, and not leave till we have 
beaten it off from the pursuit it was upon. This, 
at first, if we have let the contrary practice grow 
to an habit, will perhaps be difficult ; but constant 
endeavours will by degrees prevail, and at last make 
it easy. And when a man is pretty well advanced,, 
and can command his mind off at pleasure from 
incidental and undesigned pursuits, it may not be 
amiss for him to go on farther, and make attempts 
upon meditations of greater moment, that at last 
he may have a fall power over his own mind, and 
be so fully master of his own thoughts, as to be 
able to transfer them from one subject to another, 
with the same ease that lie can lay by any thing 
h'v has in his hand, and take something else that he 



THE UNDERSTANDING. Hi 

has a mind to in the room of it. This liberty of 
mind is of great use both in business and study, 
and he that has got it will have no small advantage 
of ease and dispatch in all that is the chosen and 
useful employment of his understanding. 

The third and last way which I mentioned the 
mind to be sometimes taken up with, I mean t Le 
chiming of some particular words or sentence in 
the memory, and, as it were, making a noise in the 
head, and the like, seldom happens but w r hen the 
mind is lazy or very loosely and negligently em- 
ployed. It were better indeed to be without such im- 
pertinent and useless repetitions ; any obvious idea, 
when it is roving carelessly at a venture, being of 
more use, and apter to suggest something worth 
consideration, than the insignificant buzz of purely 
empty sounds. But since the rousing of the mind, 
and Setting the understanding on work with some 
degrees of vigour, does for the most part presently 
set it free from these idle companions, it may not 
be amiss, whenever we find -ourselves troubled with 
them, to make use of so profitable a remedy that is 
always at Hand. 

THE EtfD, 
ALJiX. SMELUE, PRINTER. 



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